


You Have Something I'm Looking For

by ChristinasInferno



Category: The Avengers - All Fandoms
Genre: Angst, But it's still just angst really, M/M, This is just pure angst, With some smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-14
Updated: 2012-09-27
Packaged: 2017-11-12 03:03:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 20
Words: 31,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChristinasInferno/pseuds/ChristinasInferno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A familiar trip for Tony brings some of Bruce's old foes to light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter I

**Author's Note:**

> I was in Washington D.C. for college orientation, and of course in the middle of all sorts of presentations about classes and dorms and safety and such, I manage to think of a Science Boyfriends plot. My brain is mystery.
> 
> Obligatory warning- I don't own Marvel, so nothing you recognize is mine.

“I can't believe you think this is a good idea after what happened last time,” Pepper raises her eyebrows while staring Tony down from across the desk. “Really. I can't believe that you dumped me, fired me, hired me back, and then tell me that you're going off to Monaco to race in an event that nearly killed both of us the last time you attempted it.”

“First, after we broke up, you promptly took up with at least ten other men, so I don't see that as an issue. Second, you quit before I fired you. Third, you let me hire you back without complaint. Four, no psychopaths are out to steal suit designs from me this time. And finally,” Tony raises his eyebrows back at her, “Bruce is going with me. I have the suit, I have a Hulk, I'll be fine.”

Pepper sighs. “Fine. You're updating your will before you go, though. The last thing I need to find out that you've died in a car wreck and that your company is now property of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Fine. You have exactly... three hours in which to find me a lawyer.” He gets up to leave, but turns back to her for a moment. “Why would I leave my company to S.H.I.E.L.D?”

“It was an example, Tony.” She regards him with the same look she usually gives when he's being difficult, glaring. “I refuse, absolutely refuse, to be CEO of this company ever again.”

“You wouldn't be CEO if S.H.I.E.L.D owned it!” They both know that this argument is pointless, that Tony would never leave Stark Industries to Pepper or S.H.I.E.L.D, and that he probably won't even meet with the lawyer to discuss changing the will. She also knows that he was probably trying to avoid this argument, or he wouldn't have sprung the news on her three hours before he leaves.

“Hypothetical. This is all hypothetical. How long should I keep your schedule clear for?” Already Pepper can feel the beginnings of a migraine, blurring the edges of her vision, and begging for the medication she keeps easily accessible in her top desk drawer.

“A week?” Tony offers as a suggestion, which really means it's an order. “I've heard good things about the south of France this time of year. And the hotel in Monaco has beds-“

“Please, Tony. I don’t need details.”

“Now that you're dating that whiny singer, I thought you might like a little romance advice.” He's made no progress towards the door, but is standing, arms folding, smirking at Pepper.

“He's not whiny, I don't need romance advice from anyone, much less you, and what I really need right now is for you to leave me alone so I can fix the latest problem you've left me with.”

She can practically sense Tony rolling his eyes as he leaves, but gets on the phone and calls a lawyer anyway.

***

“I agree with Pepper,” Bruce says, when they're finally on the plane to Monaco, somewhere over Spain, having exhausted every other conversation topic. Tony is sitting facing him in the expensive leather chair. “This is fairly dangerous.”

“I keep telling you that I'm not worried about danger.” He takes a sip from his martini and gives Bruce one of his patented Tony Stark looks. “I'm currently in a high-speed pressurized vehicle with a man who could at any point become a giant green rage monster and destroy everything here. What makes you think I even consider the possibility of danger in a simple car race?”

“You're exposed out there,” Bruce points out, and Tony notes a hint of concern and maybe even fear in his voice. “No suit, no backup. It's just you and the car.”

“Are you afraid that I'll get hurt?” The question comes out as a challenge, but he'll be damned if he's not feeling something twist inside him, knowledge that Bruce cares.

“I'm always afraid you'll get hurt,” Bruce admits quietly. Tony is silent for a moment, and then offers him up a smile and leans forward across the table.

“Relax. Have a drink with me. Part of the point of this trip is for me to spend time with you.”

“I can't spend time with you if you're dead, Tony.”

“Jesus, what is it with people and assuming I'm going to die?”

“Well, there was the way you nearly poisoned yourself to death with palladium and spent that time engaged in a series of increasingly stupid activities, or the way you flew with a nuclear missile into space...”

There is no response, because Bruce knows that he's right, and Tony knows that Bruce knows that Bruce is right. Instead, Tony downs his drink, and moves to sit next to Bruce.

“I wouldn't do it if I genuinely thought I would die,” he says finally, as Bruce leans into him. “Death would be highly inconvenient for me right now. I've got too much going for me.”

Bruce makes a noise of agreement, and Tony realizes retrospectively that a conversation about suicide and death is not necessarily one that should have with Bruce right now, on what he had intended to be their vacation from Stark Industries and the Avengers and Nick Fury.

“You had things going for you every other time you did something stupid.”

“I didn't have you.” Tony's lips graze the side of Bruce's head, working their way over the topography of his face as he turns, until their lips finally meet.

“If you'd died every other time, this wouldn't be happening right now,” Bruce manages to get out before their lips connect again and they both accept for the second time that Bruce is right. Of course, Tony could mention how he's forever glad that the Other Guy spit out the bullet Bruce had put in his mouth, because this wouldn't be happening right now if that had worked out either.  

“We need to stop talking,” he decrees, and Bruce seems to be in agreement, because they end up making out for the rest of the trip, first in the leather seats, and then on the curved couch, and finally on the floor. When they arrive, neither one is wearing a shirt and Tony's belt is gone, pants unzipped. It's a testament to whatever Tony has planned when they get there that they don't actually have sex right there in the plane.

***

Monaco is the same as it always is during the races- crowded, full of rich and famous people, practically drowning in alcohol. A few years ago, Tony would have been all over everything and everyone here- drinking, fucking, drinking some more, racing, drinking even more before fucking again. He doesn't exactly regret it, not a pure ugly, guilty, lonely regret, but he doesn't say anything about it, because a) Bruce already knows, and b) Sometimes Tony would prefer to forget his ability to be extremely self-destructive. But then in the elevator Bruce manages to bring it up as joke, asking Tony (wryly, very wryly, as only Bruce can do) if he's intending on repeating his previous antics this time.

“Only with you,” Tony assures him, raising his eyebrows in a manner that indicates his intentions are not at all pure. Bruce’s only reaction is look down at the ground a bit and shake his head slightly, like he always does when Tony insinuates things or uses innuendo. It’s not embarrassment, but more familiarity with the way Tony operates, combined with a touch of amusement, and a touch of shyness. Quite frankly, Tony finds this reaction relatively endearing (as much as he can find anything endearing) just because it’s so typically _Bruce_ , and this makes him smile to himself as they step out of the elevator.  

The room they have is sort of insanely lavish in the sense that it’s not actually ornate or overtly fancy. Any display of wealth in the room is from the size- the bed, the windows, the room itself- are larger than strictly necessary, and the décor is actually fairly plain, dark wood and white furniture. The style ( _stark,_ Bruce thinks for a moment, mildly amused by the obvious pun) reminds him of Tony’s houses.

Tony kicks off his shoes, collapses carelessly on the bed, and Bruce sits down on the side of the bed, gazing out the window at the view of harbor, taking in the opulence and the highrise buildings and yachts.

“You can stop feeling guilty about being here,” Tony says pointedly. “You are allowed to have fun sometimes, rage monster or not.”

“You really think I would prefer to be in slums treating cholera than here with you?” Bruce turns to look at Tony over his shoulder, slightly incredulous.

“You get all uptight whenever I display any form of wealth for you.”

Bruce flips himself around, sits barefoot and cross-legged facing Tony, and he looks a little uncomfortable, either from the conversation or from the informality of his body. “Money’s not the issue. I keep telling you, I’m not used to people _wanting_ to spend time with me. “ His tone is apologetic, as if it’s all his fault. This irritates Tony, not the fact that Bruce sounds like he does but that other people have made him feel like he isn’t worthy of time or companionship because of the Hulk. _The Hulk saved my life,_ Tony is constantly reminding him, but clearly, it hasn’t made the impact he was hoping for.

“ _Get_ used to it.” He glances up at the other man, who sighs softly, and Tony is sure that he’s about to protest, to say something in warning, some ridiculous excuse about his other side that Tony’s heard a million times before (and disregarded just as many times), but he doesn’t. Instead, he relaxes a bit, lying down next to Tony on the bed, their shoulders just barely touching. 

“It’s not quite as simple as you want it to be, Tony.”

“Then let me make it simple for you,” he suggests, and he tugs at Bruce’s shoulders until they’re face-to-face. There’s a pause, in which they both wait for the other to say something, and then they’re kissing again, pressing together, mouths open, twisting and writhing as hands reach for buttons and zippers.

(Thankfully, it’s night outside and they’re on something like the 86th floor, because neither of them had the foresight to shut the curtains, and since this is a hotel, there’s not JARVIS to do it for them.)

There’s only a few breaks in the kissing- Tony rummaging for the bag by the side of the bed for lube, Bruce pulling the AC/DC shirt over Tony’s head- but mostly, they remain connected by their mouths until they’re both out of their clothes and under the covers. They break apart finally for Tony to apply lube and arrange their tangled limbs into something workable, legs entwined, arms bracing.

The whole process is a give and take, one of them receiving, taking, accepting; the other pushing and thrusting, bucking against each other until they reach the inevitable climax and they switch places and positions and repeat until they’re both panting and gasping and ready to collapse.  Which they do, sweaty, sticky, side by side, Tony’s hand tangled in Bruce’s hair.

“Is that simple enough for you, Dr. Banner?” Tony asks, and is rewarded by Bruce laughing softly.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait, I don’t actually have anything to say.
> 
> Except this: I don’t own anything you recognize. Okay. Warning over.

The next morning, Tony wakes up to the sound of the shower running, and a few minutes later, Bruce steps out of the bathroom, buttoning up a shirt. Tony rubs his eyes and stares for a moment.

“You could have woken me up. I wouldn’t have minded a shower.” He raises his eyebrows, but blinks again, and sits up. “You can’t wear that.”

Bruce glances down at his plain button-down shirt and gray pants. “Why not?”

“Because this is Monaco. This is the Grand Prix. Here, I’ll give you one of my suits.” Standing up, still naked, he goes over to one of the bags hanging in the closet, unzipping it, and pulling out a pale gray suit and dark blue shirt and tie. It’s something Tony’s only worn once or twice, and never in this combination- he’s got too many clothes for that. 

“Tony.” There’s a slight edge to Bruce’s voice. 

“Are we going to have this discussion every time I try to give you something?” The efficacy of his argument is slightly lessened by the fact that he’s naked, hair sticking up from sleep, while Bruce is clean and dressed and put together.

But Bruce doesn’t protest and so Tony walks over to him and begins unbuttoning the shirt he’s just put on. He can hear Bruce’s breathing hitch with each touch of fingers to skin, and damn it, now he’s turned on and the fact that he’s taking Bruce’s clothes off while he’s naked isn’t hurting either. So then of course he has no choice but kiss Bruce and thread his fingers through the damp curls of his hair and pull him in closer and somehow Tony ends up pinned against a wall, Bruce’s hands holding him there.

Eventually they’re both forced to acknowledge that Tony has to shower and they need to eat before the race begins, and so Bruce releases him, and Tony ends up taking a very very cold shower. When he comes out, hair slicked back from the water, he finds Bruce standing in front of the full-length mirror, examining his reflection. He’s dressed in the suit Tony gave him, and even though it was made specifically for Tony, it fits Bruce well, better than his usual cheap shirt and oversized pants.

“I’m buying you more clothes,” Tony announces. Sure, he’d lent Bruce that yellow shirt and the pants and shoes after the battle with Loki, but after that, Bruce had gone to some godawful thrift store and bought more dilapidated cheap clothing. “Non-negotiable. You look too good in that for it to be negotiable.”

There’s a moment where Bruce’s cheeks flame at the compliment, but then he glances at Tony and smiles. They both know that there could be more discussion of this later, involving Bruce not wanting to ruin anything too expensive and Tony insisting that he has enough money to not give a damn about Bruce ruining anything and Bruce trying not to take Tony’s money and Tony trying to make Bruce see that the Hulk doesn’t have to control his entire life, but for now, that feels redundant and unnecessary.

They end up eating breakfast in the room, sitting in chairs on the balcony, overlooking the harbor again, and the race circuit. Among their topics of conversation are new designs for the Iron Man suit and how they haven’t actually heard anything from S.H.I.E.L.D. lately and basically everything that isn’t the race, at least until Tony gets up to go. 

“Do you want me to watch from here,” Bruce indicates the balcony, “Or should I go downstairs?” 

For a moment, Tony searches for the appropriate words to say, to convey the idea that _just you being here with me is enough_ , but he finally just kisses Bruce on the forehead and hopes that that’s enough, because really, he’s not good with these types of conversations. Bruce whispers “Good luck, I love you” in his ear, and there’s another moment of silence while they both take in what just happened, what Bruce just said.

***

Really, the race is one of the easiest things that Tony’s ever done. No crazy people show up to try and kill him, he’s not dying of palladium poisoning, Pepper and Happy don’t have to “rescue” him; this time he just has to drive. He wins, of course, because he’s Tony Stark and he could take one of these cars apart and put it back together in his sleep. It’s the kind of fun only Tony could have, the kind where he gets to be one with the machine.

After, after he gets his trophy and the cash prize he doesn’t really need, he fights his way through the usual crowd of sycophants and young girls and people asking for autographs, reaching out to touch him, to grab him. He’s got his eye out for the real prize here, and that’s the man he left in the hotel room hours before. And then in the crowd of people cheering him, he feels a hand close around his wrist and drag him a little to the left, and he looks up to see that hand attached to the person he’s searching for. 

Bruce looks a little uncomfortable, the way he always does in large groups of people, but he’s smiling and he’s here, actually at the track, which Tony would never have predicted. And then he manages to grab Bruce before there can be any protest, and kiss him. A million flashes for a million cameras go off, and he’ll be damned if everyone in the entire fucking world won’t see this by tomorrow, but he’s beyond caring, has been for a while now.

When they break apart, to catcalls and applause and other assorted reactions from the crowd, Bruce has the decency to look embarrassed, something Tony lost a long time ago, around the time he appeared in Rolling Stone for the first time. But he does at least have enough common sense to drag Bruce away from the crowd and over the car that’s waiting to take them back to the hotel.

“Congratulations,” Bruce says, eyebrows raised, smile easy and slow, once they’re both settled in the back seat. “I _am_ impressed.”

“Is that so, Dr. Banner?” He’s about to make some comment about how he’s Tony Stark and _everything_ he does is impressive and doesn’t Bruce know that after last night, but he’s cut off by a kiss and hey, he’s not going to complain if Bruce is gonna get a little forceful.  There’s a lot of tongue and some nips and bites and hands in hair and hands other places, and it’s not a bad way to spend the ride back.

The hotel lobby is just as crowded, but they manage to force their way through that and get into an elevator; it’s just a bit unfortunate that they’re not the only ones in that elevator or at least two or three articles of clothing would be coming off. Winning has a positive effect on Tony’s libido.

Finally, _finally,_ they manage to get back to the room, still fully clothed, this time remembering to draw the curtains. And then there’s the inevitable race to remove clothing, the one that usually ends in something ripping in the hurry. This time, it’s the blue shirt Bruce was wearing, shredded by Tony’s haste to expose as much skin as possible in the least amount of time possible.

Roughly, Tony pushes Bruce onto the bed, not even considering how the Other Guy could perceive this, could turn it into a threat. He trusts Bruce to control that, and besides, he’s never been one for anything too gentle. The bottle of lube is still buried in the pillows from the night before, and he seizes it, smearing it on himself in the haste to be fucking _right now._

“Fuck, Tony,” Bruce moans beneath him, and this could mean a lot of things, but Tony chooses to interpret it as his cue to thrust into Bruce, hard, heavy. There are hands roving up and down his chest, grabbing at his hips and ass, and holding tightly, which just turns him on more, and in response he increases his pace. When he feels that familiar heat in the pit of his stomach, he reaches down and grabs Bruce’s cock, jerking him in time with his thrusting. At this point, they’re both incoherent, the only communication coming in moans and gasps and whatever they do with their hands and mouths. Bruce is sucking and biting at Tony’s neck, leaving a trail of bruises that’ll be somewhat difficult to hide but are so, so worth it.

He’s careful to time it so they come at the same time, and yeah, he says it every time he has sex, but he’s pretty damn sure that nothing he’s done has ever felt _quite_ this good. They both end up lying back on the bed, attempting to catch their breath, still not talking, until other urges and desires make themselves known to Tony.

“I could really go for a glass of champagne right now. 

Bruce turns to him, sort of laughing, because of course Tony wants champagne now. “There’s a bar downstairs.”

“Will you be okay without me?” It’s semi-serious, this comment, and Bruce is smart enough to know how to balance Tony’s vanity with his own feelings.

“I could use another shower, anyway. I have to find new clothes.” 

So while Bruce is cleaning himself off, Tony heads back downstairs to procure the expensive bottle of liquor possible. Along the way, he meets hoards of fans, some in Iron Man regalia, and he signs more autographs, and he’s certain that by the time he actually gets to the bar, Bruce will have finished his shower and gotten dressed and be waiting.

He pulls out all the stops on the blonde at the bar- speaks French, giving her stupid compliments, offering her twice the price of the bottle- but she still won’t sell him an entire bottle of champagne without speaking to her manager, and so he’s forced to sit and wait while she makes a phone call. It’s almost to the point where Tony wants to get on the phone himself and say _It’s Tony Stark, I’ll pay you double or triple or whatever the hell you want, just give me the damn bottle_ but she finally brings it out to him, apologizing profusely.

This time, he has the elevator all to himself, and he curses the irony for a moment before the door opens a few floors up. He’s dressed in a suit and sunglasses and carrying a drink that costs more than some cars, and doesn’t really pay attention to the person who gets in, even when they address him by name. Really. He’s Tony Stark; everyone knows his name. 

“Tony Stark.”

“That’s me.” He doesn’t turn, eyes focused straight ahead behind the dark lenses, until something breaks in his mind, recognition of that voice, and he turns to face one person he’d like to never have to talk to, ever.

“You have something I’m looking for.”


	3. Chapter III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have another chapter! I can’t promise this update as fast as I possibly can thing is gonna keep going on but I’ll do my best, depending on how my packing up for college goes. Enjoy!
> 
> I don’t own Marvel; therefore I don’t own anything you recognize.

The other man in the elevator is standing straight, perfect posture, military bearing, despite being dressed in civilian clothes. He’s perfectly non-descript in a dark suit and tie, and if Tony didn’t know exactly who he was, he could simply be just another tourist here.

“I can’t help you.” He’s going to make that clear right, whatever the military wants, they’re not getting it. Quite frankly, between Hammer and the Congressional hearings and the fiasco in Afghanistan, he’s had enough of them for a while.

“You already have helped me.” A sheaf of papers is forced into Tony’s hand, and his stomach sinks. “You’ve never learned the meaning of the word ‘discretion’, have you, Mr. Stark?”

“Strangely, you’re not the first person to tell me that.”

“Your irreverence is hardly helping your cause, Stark. You’re harboring a criminal and you already have a track record with the government. The only thing stopping me from arresting you as well is that medal-“ He makes a face, clearly indicating that he doesn’t think Tony is deserving of any such award, “-that Stern gave you.”

“Yeah. I saved all of you from being destroyed by the Hammerdrones a few years back. Most people would just send flowers and a thank-you note.” 

“This isn’t about you, Stark, hard as that might be for you to believe. This is about the fugitive that the Army has been looking for for years.”

Tony’s mouth goes dry and panic starts exploding inside of him like a million nuclear bombs. “What are you planning to do, General?”

“Do I really have to spell this out for you, Stark?” he barks. “We have unfinished business with Dr. Banner, that’s all.”

“Is that what ‘torture’ is being called nowadays?” His eyebrows raise and his heart begins to beat more quickly. Bruce has never explicitly told him what the government wants from him, but Tony’s not an idiot.

“Torture? The U.S. Army doesn’t-“

“-torture. Yeah, I’ve heard. I read up on all your notes. Pretty sure some of that stuff isn’t legal under the Geneva Convention.”

“You should know better than anyone, Mr. Stark, that what the Army tells the world and what we actually do are different things. Maybe you starting feeling a little guilty about the bombs, turned into some sort of hippie clean-energy freak, but my job will has always been and will always be the same. Locate the threat to America, eliminate that threat. If it takes an invasion or missiles or even torture, goddammit, I’ll do it and I’ll sleep just fine at night.”

There’s a pause while Ross glares at Tony and Tony stares at the wall and finally speaks.

“I’ll build you another missile.”

“Is that what you think I’m after here? A missile? I can get plenty of those without you.”

“No. I’ll build you whatever weapons you want. The Jericho, whatever. I’ll design Iron Man suits for your soldiers, or arc reactor-powered jets, or give you the rights to all my old weapons designs. Anything you like.” 

“Are you attempting to negotiate with me, Mr. Stark?”

“I’m offering you the chance to utilize some of the best technology in the modern age. This is the stuff that wins you wars, General. And I’m asking for only _one_ thing in return, and it’s not even money.”

General Ross doesn’t laugh at Tony’s joke. “We don’t negotiate. Especially not when dealing with one of our most wanted fugitives.”

Tony swallows. “I’m not going to let you take Banner. I used to supply the Army with weapons, General. I have the technology to hold you off, and not just hold you off, but completely annihilate you.”

“Are you threatening me, Mr. Stark?” 

“I was attempting to negotiate with you. Apparently, you dislike _that_ idea.” He shrugs a little.

Ross is beginning to lose his cool, Tony can see that, and he’s not sure if that means he’s winning or losing here. “Let me be absolutely clear.” He grabs Tony by the lapels of his suit jacket, glaring and growling. “I will not be intimidated into letting a dangerous criminal go just to satisfy your little crush. The Army knows where you are, we know where Dr. Banner is, and we will find him and arrest him, and there is nothing you or your technology can do otherwise.”

The elevator door opens and Ross releases him. “I’ll be seeing you soon, Mr. Stark,” he says, nodding, and walks out.

In the rest of the ride, which is less than a minute long, Tony manages to drink a ridiculous amount of champagne. There’s nothing to celebrate now.

***

“Tony!” Bruce just stares at him for a moment when he gets back to the room, holding the open bottle of champagne and the papers Ross gave him, jacket askew. “What…wait, I probably don’t want to know.”

“I met someone in the elevator.” His voice sounds weird, like it’s not really coming from his own body. Bruce just stares for a moment, and Tony knows what he’s assuming, and almost wishes it were true instead of what really happened. “Ross. He’s here. He’s after you.” He holds out the papers, and Bruce takes them, flips through them, and his face just goes totally sober.

“This is everything. He’s got everything, Tony. Starting when we got off the plane and up until this morning.” He holds up the last picture, of the kiss after the race. Taking his glasses off, he puts a hand to his forehead, eyes closed.

“Damn it _._ Goddammit.” Anger pulses through him and there’s the champagne bottle in his hand and he isn’t sure how exactly it happens but there’s a flurry of movement and then a crash and glass litters the floor and the alcohol drips down the wall.

They both stand in silence for a moment, until Bruce breaks it.

“I have to leave.”

“Just tell me where and we’ll go.”

“No.” Bruce sighs, shakes his head. “It’s too dangerous. You’ve already implicated yourself here. If you come with me, you’ll lose any chance of getting out of this. I can’t let you do that.” He sits down on the edge of the bed again, resting his head on his hand.

“I have a medal for bravery from Congress despite managing to piss off each and every member,” Tony says, sitting down next to him. “There’s nothing they can do to me, at least nothing that matters. Besides,” God, this would be easier to say if they were anyone else, if Tony wasn’t so weird about expressing emotion and Bruce wasn’t so weird about people being nice to him, “I offered General Ross his choice of Stark Industries weaponry. That didn’t work out so well, so I told him I’d use them on him if he came anywhere near you. I’m pretty sure that I’ve already crossed whatever metaphorical line the Army’s drawn in the sand.”

“You can’t draw a metaphor,” Bruce says sadly. “At least not the way you just described.”

“Yeah, well, MIT wasn’t big on poetry,” Tony says. 

Bruce just stares at the wall. “I thought I was safe, you know, with S.H.I.E.L.D. and all. And then it turns out that all I needed to do was go on vacation and…” He trails off, not bothering to finish the thought.

A few thoughts coalesce in Tony’s head. “Why now?”

Bruce doesn’t look at him. “Ever since the battle, I’ve become more visible. Inevitable, I suppose.”

“We’re missing something.” It’s like an equation, Tony thinks. If he can just look at all the variables, he can manipulate it and input the right numbers. “Firstly, where’s S.H.I.E.L.D. in all of this? I thought that Agent Romanoff said that they were keeping other “interested parties” at bay. Second, if Ross is in Monte Carlo, why isn’t he here arresting you now?”

Now Bruce looks the same way he does when confronted with a problem in the lab. “S.H.I.E.L.D. did that because it helped them. They don’t do things out of the goodness of their hearts, they do it because it benefits them. If they’re overlooking what’s going on, it’s because they don’t want to get involved. If they’re involved, it’s in what they believe to be their best interests.” There’s an unspoken addendum to Bruce’s comments, namely that _S.H.I.E.L.D.’s best interests are not in my best interests._ “And Ross isn’t arresting me because he’s afraid to.”

“He can’t bring a battalion of soldiers to Monaco.” The equation is becoming clearer now. “And if he arrests you, he has to do it quietly. And calmly. Rage monster and all. How does one take the Hulk into captivity anyway?” 

“It’s not pleasant.” His voice is hollow, and Tony is forced to imagine what kind of things the Army could come up with that would contain and subdue the Hulk. Personally, Tony’s always been a fan of the Other Guy, as Bruce calls him- he can only imagine having that much raw power at his disposal, and while Bruce told him that being the Hulk was basically being exposed, Tony would disagree. In his mind, the Hulk is the best kind of protective armor, totally portable, and never in need of repair or replacing. Sometimes, when he’s still able to think but just drunk enough to be a little crazy, he wonders what it would be like to have the Iron Man suit like that, under his skin at all times. All in all, Bruce-as-Hulk is powerful, too powerful for bullets (thank god, or Tony wouldn’t have Bruce in any form with him right now) or whatever pitiful weapons the military usually uses. The fact that Ross told him, totally confident, that the Army would arrest Bruce, means that they have some sort of plan in place to deal with all of this.

A few years ago, Tony would have considered himself an expert on military technology. Now, he actively tries to avoid the subject. That being said, he still has some contacts (one contact, really) in the right circles, and if there’s an occasion to make that call, it’s now. He slips his phone from his pocket and presses a number on speed-dial, waiting, until someone picks up after two rings.

“Rhodey? I need a favor.” 


	4. Chapter IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here. Have a new chapter! One very important note- I’m gong to college to study political science. My knowledge of military operations and workings is limited to what I read on the news and/or all the random Google searches I did while writing this. I apologize if this isn’t 100% accurate in any way, shape, or form.
> 
> Anyway. Insert usual “I don’t own Marvel characters” warning here. Okay. Enjoy!

“You always need a favor, Tony,” Rhodey grumbles when he hears Tony’s voice on the line, and normally, that remark would leave Tony smarting and a bit defensive. Not now.

“If you come through on this one, I’ll get you anything you want,” Tony promises. “Anything. Mark VI, a vacation home in Mallorca, anything.”

“Mark VI? You must be desperate,” Rhodey remarks. “What could be that important?”

“What do you know about U.S. Army General Thaddeus Ross?”

He can hear Rhodey’s frustration over the phone. “I’m Air Force, not Army, remember, Tony? I’m in Paris right now at a conference, I don’t have time for you to waste.”

“Would I be asking you if I didn’t think you could help?” Sure, he’s all charm and swagger, typical Stark, right now, but he’s certain that if Rhodey keeps stalling, he’s gonna fall apart into maybe a million pieces and he won’t know how to put himself back together.

“What’s really going on, Tony?” There’s the sound of a sigh through the phone. “Who did you manage to piss off now?”

“Why do you always assume that it’s me who’s done something? I didn’t piss Ross off, he fucked with me first. Anything I said to him was purely in self-defense, I swear.” He holds up his free hand in a sort of ‘I surrender’ gesture, even though Rhodey can’t see it.

“Jesus fucking Christ Tony. What happened?” There’s resignation in Rhodey’s voice. An idea forms in Tony’s head.

“I’m coming to Paris. We can talk then.” He hangs up before there can be any protests.

He doesn’t even have to cajole Bruce into coming to Paris, although he can’t decide if that’s because Bruce wants to be on the move again, or because he’s so resigned to Ross coming after him that he doesn’t think it matters where he is. They manage to slip out to the waiting car, which takes them to the plane. The ride is short, only an hour or so, and they spend it in silence.

The airport they land at is private, just outside Paris, and Rhodey meets them there. He looks a little unsettled when he sees Bruce with Tony, but doesn’t say anything until they’re all in the back of the car, hidden behind tinted windows. 

“General Ross,” Tony prompts him, as if there was a never a stop to the conversation.

“Why don’t we skip the part where you pretend you don’t know half the story anyway and get to the part where we discuss specifics?” Rhodey suggests. “I’m not supposed to be leaving the conference for any reason, much less to give out government secrets to you, Tony.”

“So you admit that you’re willing to give me top-secret information?”

“ _That_ was not what I said. You tell me what you know, I’ll fill in what I can, then leave so you can go self-destruct somewhere else.” He gives Bruce a wary glance, but doesn’t say anything about the fact that Tony’s got a wanted man with them.

“Short version: I meet Ross in an elevator in Monte Carlo, he tells me he knows I’m there with Dr. Banner, I offer him technology in exchange for not arresting Dr. Banner, he refuses, I threaten him with my vast weapons arsenal, he refuses again, threatens me, and gets out of the elevator.” 

Probably it’s the length of time that Rhodey’s known him and the amount of absurdly stupid things Tony’s done in front of him that stop Rhodey from commenting on the fact that Tony threatened and/or General Ross with weapons he’d swore he’d never make again. In fact, he doesn’t even look shocked, which, later, Tony will realize should have been a clue as to what was going on.

“What I want to know is this,” Tony leans forward in his seat, “What is Ross planning? I know there’s a plan in place, new weapons, whatever. “

Rhodey’s eyes travel to Bruce again.

“I already have an idea about what kinds of things they could be working on,” Bruce says quietly and Rhodey’s mouth opens and then snaps back shut, like he’s not really sure what the appropriate response is here. Then he turns back to Tony.

“I’m not Army so I can’t give you specifics, but it’s common knowledge that Ross is bitter about S.H.I.E.L.D. keeping Dr. Banner’s location confidential. In the past few months, ever since the battle in Manhattan with those weird aliens, he’s been developing some sort of plan for what he would do if S.H.I.E.L.D. ever decided to cooperate with him.”

“So why did S.H.I.E.L.D. turn now?” Bruce asks, essentially reading Tony’s mind.

“You guys work for them, you’d know more than I do,” Rhodey replies. “But regardless of their motivation for selling you out, Ross is definitely got something going on, and it’s pretty specific.”

Tony raises his eyebrows as means of saying “Go on”.

“He’s been involved in building a facility in rural Pennsylvania, which is supposedly gonna be used for radiation testing, and he’s been recruiting scientists for that, experts in gamma rays, mostly.”

All of this, except for the location of the facility, Tony could have guessed himself. “What else?”

“He’s got a list of experiments he wants perform and no, I don’t know the specifics, but he’s been requisitioning all sorts of medical equipment. Anesthesia, IV equipment, needles, drugs.”

“What _kind_ of drugs? I need details here, Rhodey, and you’re not giving them to me!”

“Sedatives.”

Rarely, very rarely, does Tony actually feel panicked. After all, he frequently travels thousands of feet up in the air wearing something he basically built in his garage. Usually, if he does panic, it involves the arc reactor and the thought of dying if it’s taken out for too long. However, his brain is now running through every possible thing that Ross could be doing with that equipment, and it’s not coming up with anything remotely positive. Yeah, Tony’s got a bit of a problem admitting (even to himself) that he cares about people, but he _does_ care about Bruce, loves him really, and thinking about what Ross wants to do to him is making Tony angry and panicked. He tries to keep his features as neutral as possible, because while Rhodey’s seen him in all sorts of compromising positions, Tony’s not ready to start sharing his feelings with him. Next time, Bruce is looking oddly calm.

“What else?” Bruce asks. “I know Ross and he’s not just interested in the medical aspect.”

Rhodey looks distinctly uncomfortable being asked directly by Bruce about whatever Ross has planned for him. “He’s developed a stockpile of weapons. Machine guns and rifles mostly, but also some experimental stuff from other joint Armed Forces projects. That stuff is pretty nasty. They’re really just stun guns with bullets, but anyone who gets shot with it is immobilized while they’re bleeding from the bullet wound. And that’s just the stuff I know about. I’m guessing he’s got more. Ross has been working on this project for years and he’s had a long time to figure out what he wants to do.”

For a moment, there’s silence while Tony absorbs this information and Bruce looks pensive.

“If you were me, what would you do?” Bruce’s voice is low and quiet and still strangely calm. Tony realizes that he must be incredibly used to this, even more used to this than he ever lets on. It’s likely that they’ll never talk about that, but Tony makes a mental note to somehow indicate to Bruce that he knows how awful this is.

“If I were you, I’d run.” Rhodey looks like the answer came from his mouth before he could even think. Tony likes Rhodey, but sometimes, his stupid military programming gets in the way of him being an actual human being. For Rhodey to admit that running from the Army is in Bruce’s best interests is pretty significant. Ordinarily, Tony would make a snarky comment about this and getting the moment recorded on film. “I’d get on a plane and go as far away as I possibly could, somewhere without any other people around. I’d disappear forever.”

Bruce nods flatly. “I tried that.”

“And?”

“I found things I liked better than isolation,” he says, eyes sliding over to Tony, and their fingers interlace.

 


	5. Chapter V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t own Marvel and yeah, I keep telling you this so hopefully you know that by now. Also, this chapter does contain slash. Just a warning.

After leaving Rhodey back at his conference, Tony honestly isn’t sure what to do. Normally, he’d check into a ridiculously expensive hotel and eat an equally expensive meal, but doing that now feels risky. People know his face, and he doesn’t want to attract any attention. Sure, it’s unlikely that General Ross is reading tabloids, but if the paparazzi can find him wherever he goes, he’s pretty sure the military can too. And if Ross knows where Tony is, he’ll know where Bruce is, because diversions and safety be damned, Tony isn’t leaving him alone, not now.

Bruce just watches out the windows, and Tony realizes that he hasn’t yet asked the obvious question.

“Have you been here before?”

“Once, for a conference on astrophysics.” He looks a little wistful, and Tony guesses that that was before the accident. “I was working on my doctorate.”

They lapse into silence again while Bruce reminisces, and Tony tries to decide what to do next. They can’t just drive around Paris forever, as much as either of them might like to do so. Their hands are still clasped together and Bruce is absent-mindedly stroking Tony’s palm with his thumb.

Tony’s phone rings. He thinks, very briefly, about ignoring it, but from the way Bruce has increased his grip on Tony’s hand, the moment is ruined anyway.

“Stark,” he answers curtly without glancing at the caller ID. It’s his lawyer, talking about lawsuits and government contracts and it all hits Tony the way a punch might- hard, sharp, and right to the gut. The news begins to bring back the claustrophobic sense of panic.

“Tony?” Bruce is staring at him, question in his eyes, and Tony is angry, so _fucking angry…_

“I have to go back to New York.”

For a moment, Bruce thinks and without turning his head, speaks in a monotone. “What did Ross do?”

“He filed a lawsuit. He’s suing on behalf of the U.S. government for the rights to vibranium. I have to return to New York to appear in court tomorrow at two.” He takes a breath, trying to lessen the blow of the news he’s about to deliver. “You’re named in the lawsuit, too. You have to appear in court with me.” 

Neither of them will look the other in the eye at first, refusing to share their fears. Tony works on formulating some sort of plan, any plan really, that doesn’t involve Bruce getting arrested the second he sets foot back on U.S. soil. He’s certain Bruce is running in his mind a list of all the places he could hide, everywhere he could go and not be Bruce Banner anymore.

“Are you going back?” The look Bruce gives Tony when he asks him this is both weary and nervous. His eyes are shadowed and sad. There’s a faint hint of green in their depths. 

Tony sighs. He turns to look out the deeply tinted windows. This is not how he wanted to spend his time in France with Bruce. He wanted more alcohol, more sex, days spent in bed drinking and talking and fucking and going to the best hotels and restaurants and being _together._

A new plan takes place in his head.

“Before you run- don’t look at me like that, we both know that you’re going to disappear as soon as you can- before you run, I need to you to do something for me.”

In Bruce’s face, Tony can see the toll the past few hours have taken on them both. There were so many things Tony had wanted to do with him, which have been replaced by things he now _has_ to do before Bruce runs.

A ghost of a smile flickers on Bruce’s face. “I always get nervous when you say that.” Tony smirks a little and gives directions to the driver, praying that Bruce won’t have any idea of where he’s taking them. They’re still holding hands, and Bruce resumes stroking Tony’s palm in slow circles. Without Rhodey there, they’ve moved closer together, leaning on one another just a bit.

“I promise, nothing bad.”

“I distinctly remember that right after we met, you promised me- what was it, no surprises? - and then jabbed me in the ribs to test my self-control.”

“Hey. It was for scientific purposes only.”

“Flirting, more like,” Bruce laughs, and Tony counts this as a victory.

“You didn’t seem to mind it.” And there’s that smile again, the one that always makes Tony feel all the clichéd metaphorical internal melting feelings described in romance novels.

When the car pulls up in front of the hotel, Bruce gives Tony an undecipherable look. Tony chooses to ignore it. If he’s only got one more night with Bruce, it’s gonna be somewhere nice, nicer than wherever Bruce is running off to. If he has to, he can bribe the staff too; it’s one of the benefits of having a strange code of ethics and more money than he’ll ever be able to spend. 

They end up getting a room without any trouble, and Tony calls room service, and orders champagne and what looks like everything on the menu. If Bruce didn’t know better, he’d assume it was a celebration. Lacking any better ideas, they eat out on the balcony again, and in the dying light, the skyline is magnificent. Even though it’s possibly the last meal they’ll eat together for a very long time, neither one of them says much.

When it gets cold, they go back inside and pull the curtains, sitting side by side on the leather sofa. In the dim blue light from the arc reactor, Tony can see Bruce open his mouth to say something, but he doesn’t give him the chance, kissing him. It’s raw and needy and Bruce responds in kind, pressing hard and nipping and biting at Tony’s lips. Hands trace their way down Tony’s chest, tugging gently at the bottom of his shirt. Both of them are wearing button-down shirts, and this makes removal much easier. It only takes a minute or so, and then they’re both naked again.

Unlike the last few times, this sex isn’t _fucking_ but _making love._ This is gentle and vulnerable and bruised. This is Tony burrowing his face into Bruce’s neck and Bruce caressing Tony’s face with his lips. This is clutching the other close and letting their arms encircle each other and the border between their bodies dissolving. They merge and blend and fuse, even after the inevitable climax, neither of them making any move to separate when the actual sex is over. Side by side, face to face, pressed together because really, there’s not much room, they lie on the couch. They’re damp with sweat but not tired yet.   

Eventually, Bruce murmurs something about a shower, and so they disentangle themselves for a moment. Under the boiling hot water, surrounded by steam, they continue what they were doing on the couch, slightly different position, same feelings. Bruce traces the outline of the arc reactor with his hands and places his lips on its glass cover, and Tony whines and purrs. His fingers tug at the water-soaked curls of Bruce’ s hair, pull him closer. Everything is slow and warm, and if not for the horrible future they know is coming, it would be as absolutely close to perfect as humanly possible.

After they finally get out of the shower, there’s one final portion of the night, the part with actual talking. Even though the bed is huge, they barely take up half of it, they’re so close, lying on their backs.

“When we get to the airport tomorrow,” Tony begins, staring at the ceiling, “I got one of my private jets for you. There’s $100,000 in cash on board in a locked briefcase, a credit card linked to one of my offshore accounts, an encrypted phone, and a laptop with its own wireless hotspot. The pilot has instructions to take you wherever you want to go.” He swallows.

“You didn’t…you don’t have to…” Bruce says despondently, but Tony just ignores him.

“Yes, I do.” He pauses for a moment. “You have to promise me one thing, though.” 

There’s not any skepticism or hesitation in Bruce’s voice. “Of course.” 

“I don’t care how low you get, promise me you won’t try to kill yourself. I don’t care that you can’t. Don’t even try.”

“I don’t _try_ to get low, Tony.” His voice sounds like he’s trying to smooth over the cracks in it, but it’s not working. “It’s what happens when you wake up and find out that everything you wanted in your life has been destroyed by something awful you can’t control.” Another pause. “I wanted to find the answer; to be the one who made the discovery that changed everything. I had a whole life planned out: wife, kids, dog, genius scientist, awards…I honestly thought I was smart enough to be the one who…well, obviously not. You know what happened.”

“The accident didn’t happen because you didn’t know what you were doing. I’ve read all the reports and you’re lucky you’re alive.” **_I’m_** _lucky you’re alive_ , he wants to say.

Bruce just sighs. “We keep coming back to this, don’t we, Tony? Do you really think the Other Guy saved my life so I could spend it in hiding as a wanted man?”

“Maybe he saved your life so you got to meet me,” Tony suggests, outwardly arrogant, but secretly, hoping that Bruce agrees because god, Tony can’t even begin to imagine an alternative.

Fortunately, Bruce seems to realize something, because he reaches his hand out and covers the arc reactor with it. “I’m sorry.” Tony brings his own hand up to clasp it. “I didn’t mean….I wouldn’t...” There’s more silence while Bruce collects his thoughts, and then he continues stronger, with more conviction, “Having you…it makes the gamma, the Other Guy, the Army…it makes it all worth it.”

Again, there’s silence. Their whole conversation seems to be a mess of stops and starts, of comments that need time to sink in and be digested.

“Wherever you disappear to, I’m always going to be able to find you. I don’t care what the military has, I’ve got something better.”

“Always?” Bruce is smiling slightly.

“Always,” Tony smirks, but only for a second, because now this isn’t about searching.

“Regardless of what happens tomorrow…I love you,” Bruce says softly. They rarely say this to one another. Tony especially has trouble admitting it. Apart from the red and gold metal, he usually wears another set of armor, emotional armor, something that he’s only really taken off for a few people. But right now, here in the light of the arc reactor, in a hotel room thousands of miles from home, with separation imminent, it’s perfect.

“I love you too,” Tony replies, and they stay wrapped around each other for the longest time.

 


	6. Chapter VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t own Marvel. That is all.

When Tony wakes up the next morning, Bruce is still asleep, nestled up against him, and Tony doesn’t have the heart to wake him. Instead, he laces his fingers in the iron-streaked curls of Bruce’s hair and brings his lips to his hairline. Something about Bruce brings out whatever protective instincts are buried deep inside Tony. Maybe it’s the mild-mannered-scientist-covering-up-heartbreak-and-rage-monster thing. Maybe it’s the on-the-run-from-everything-including-himself angle. Whatever it is, it’s currently breaking whatever is left of Tony’s heart. And that’s saying a lot.

It’s only a few minutes before he stirs, blinking and squinting. “What time is it?” He arches his neck to look at the clock behind Tony. “We really should get up.”

In response, Tony buries his face into Bruce’s chest. Bruce strokes his hair a bit, fingers caressing the messy spikes.  It’s incredibly tender, and therefore, incredibly sad.

Finally, too soon really, they get up and get dressed and for once, Tony doesn’t say anything about the clothes Bruce is wearing and Bruce doesn’t complain about the length of time it takes Tony to pick out a suit and tie.

Once again, Tony orders everything on the menu from room service and they sit in silence on the balcony. Both of them pretend that they’re not as nervous as they really are, especially Tony. Bruce looks more melancholy than nervous, but Tony figures that’s because he’s always a little melancholy. They avoid most speaking, touching, or eye contact. Everything they need to say, they’re said already.

Outside, the sky is a pale gray and it’s a cool but not cold. The drive to the airport is another half an hour of silence and avoided eyes, but at one point, Bruce picks up Tony’s hand and sort of squeezes it in his own and they turn and look at each other, brown eyes meeting brown eyes, and then look away.

Tony’s phone rings again, and again, he thinks about ignoring it, but no, he’s not that stupid, it could be his lawyer again, or Pepper, or S.H.I.E.L.D. or just someone, _anyone,_ who could help them out of this mess.

The number is blocked.

“Stark,” he snaps, ignoring the panic he’s feeling ( _he is_ _not going to panic, everything will be okay, he is Tony Stark, he will make it okay_ ) or all the conclusions his mind has jumped to ( _but is he ever wrong? For once, he hope’s he’s wrong_ ).

“Put me on speakerphone,” the voice on the other end of the line snarls, and every fear Tony had is suddenly realized. He hesitates, and Ross continues, “I can see every move you make, Stark.”

For once, Tony does as he’s told. Bruce recoils slightly when he hears the general’s voice, but then squares his shoulders and turns towards the phone in Tony’s hand.

“There are 20 snipers hidden around the air field and trained on the car. If either of you try to run, or do not follow my directions, I will not hesitate to tell them to shoot.”

Bruce makes a soft noise that might be anger or fear or desperation, and Tony can’t help but notice that his skin is a little pallid underneath its usual tan. This is dangerous territory, for everyone, and instinctively, Tony grabs the briefcase he’s been carrying around everywhere with him since he met Ross in the hotel.

“It would be in everyone’s best interests if you come quietly,” Ross reminds them, and Bruce’s eyes flash green and he smiles in the most unfunny way possible.

“It would be in everyone’s best interests if you didn’t make me come at all,” Bruce says. “We both know what happens when you make me angry, General, and it’s not going to end well for you or your snipers.”

“Come quietly now and there won’t be a need for snipers.”

Bruce shakes his head at the way Ross seems to be ignoring the reality of the situation. The military might have a numerical advantage here, but they’re up against the Hulk and Iron Man, and maybe Tony’s vain more than he should be, but right now, he can’t envision a scenario in which he and Bruce don’t walk away the winners of this battle. “You’re not in control of whether I come quietly or not, General. Even I don’t get complete control of that.”

He’s still sounding calm and mild-mannered as ever, and Tony can’t help but be impressed by the control that he’s got right now. In this game, Bruce is definitely beating Ross and he’s not even close to his breaking point.

“One way or another, you’re going to be _mine_ , Banner. I’ve spent too much time and waited too long for you and your little boyfriend to fuck this up for me. Now get out of the damn car, nice and slowly, with your hands up.”

Something breaks inside Tony, something dark and ugly rearing its head, and he shoves the door of the car open and gets out, still holding the briefcase, Bruce staring from the safety of the back seat. Ross and his snipers are nowhere to be seen, obviously, but that doesn’t stop Tony from grinning manically. 

“I said with your hands up, Stark,” Ross growls.

“Whatever you say, General,” and he drops the briefcase and raises his hands in the air and suddenly the case is alive, growing and transforming into the suit, encircling Tony’s legs and arms and torso, the helmet snapping into place. _Playtime_ , he thinks, as a shot rings out. As usual, he doesn’t have a real plan, but hey, he’ll think of something, _genius billionaire playboy philanthropist_ and all.

“JARVIS, give me an infrared camera view. I need to see where these snipers are.” 

“Yes, sir.” The interface goes purple, and Tony can see the red glow of human bodies in strategic locations around the airfield. Another shot, and the glass of the car windshield is shattered. Tony circles around, the focus of his mission now clear: _protect the car._ Forget taking out the snipers- they’ll run out of ammo eventually. The suit’s bulletproof and now that he knows where they all are, the army’s got nothing on Iron Man.

All hell breaks loose. He can’t see the bullets until they hit something, but he can hear the rifles and see the hands pull the triggers. Shots hit the car doors and Tony realizes, almost too late, that he needs to draw the fire away from Bruce and the car. He swerves to the left and then to the right, closer to the airplanes, and the shots continue.

And then one hits him, barely grazing his hand really, but it’s enough to shake his balance for a moment, which is enough time for another shot to hit him, square in the chest.

The glass from the suit’s arc reactor shatters.

“Sir,” JARVIS begins, but Tony cuts him off.

“Just tell me how much time we have,” he snaps.

“The shot has disabled the suit’s arc reactor, sir. I’ve tapped into the reactor in your chest, but you only have a few minutes of that before the suit dies or you go into cardiac arrest.”

“Fuck.”

“If I may, sir, I would suggest you use your remaining power to land safely before-“

There’s a thud and the crunch of metal.

“-you hit the ground like that,” JARVIS finishes, and Tony’s world goes blankly black.


	7. Chapter VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As per usual, I don’t own anything you recognize here. 
> 
> Also also also! There's a reference in this chapter to something Tony says in one of the deleted scenes from Iron Man 2. If you search "iron man 2 deleted opening scene" or "iron man 2 alternate opening" on YouTube, you should find it.

“Tony.” Someone’s shaking him gently. “ _Tony._ Wake up.” He blinks and squints, once, twice, the light too bright for his eyes.

When he finally can keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds, he takes his bearings. He’s lying on the floor of his jet, Bruce kneeling over him. Pieces of the suit are lying haphazardly a few feet away. Bruce is holding something to his temple.

“I need to stitch up the cut on your face,” Bruce says. “Stay still. It’s going to hurt. I’m sorry, I only have ibuprofen.” Tony just moans in pain. He’s sore and aching and he can feel the bruises beginning to bloom under his skin. Before he can really register what Bruce has told him, there’s a stinging, stabbing pain in the spot Bruce was applying pressure to a minute before.

“Hey-“ he tries to protest, but he can’t find the energy and then there’s another stabbing sensation. 

“I’m sorry,” Bruce repeats. He dabs at the stitches with isopropyl alcohol and Tony winces. “I need to do this. I know it hurts.” His voice is low and a little patronizing, and Tony has a sudden flash of how he sounds when he’s treating his patients in India or whatever developing country he’s run to. Whatever country he _will_ run to.

A few minutes later, when Bruce has cleaned all Tony’s cuts and covered the stitches with bandages and forced him to take Motrin _(“You need a painkiller Tony, regardless of your feelings about the brand.”_ ), he finally feels lucid enough to sit up and ask questions. 

“What’s going on?”

“Come sit.” An arm pulls him up gently, and Bruce helps him over to one of the seats before sitting across from him.

“We’re on one of your private jets back to New York City.”

“I didn’t think you were-“

“I didn’t have a choice.” In the light from the window, his olive skin is golden, the shadows under his eyes more prominent. “Ross didn’t need to develop new technology to bring me back to the U.S. He set a trap and I walked right into it.”

Tony swallows and tries to focus on the edge of the window. He knows exactly what the trap was. He knows exactly what would force Bruce to get on a plane back to the United States, and it wouldn’t even involve handcuffs. It’s him, an injured Tony Stark, and that’s not vanity or genius, but the truth.

Bruce loves him.

He knew that, of course, but he’s never seen such clear evidence of it. This whole relationship, it’s been the most real thing, the most human one he’s probably ever had. He’s never had a reason to doubt Bruce, but this, this moment, it’s the most obvious it’s ever been to Tony.

His eyes flick up to Bruce’s face, but just looking at him sort of hurts. If it weren’t for Tony, Bruce wouldn’t be on this plane, heading back to New York to be arrested by General Ross. He would laugh if it were more appropriate, because this is just so _him,_ so typical Tony Stark. The person he loves the most in the whole damn world is about to suffer because _Tony_ needs him for something.

“I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong,” Bruce says quietly. “ _Tony_. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. You got shot protecting _me._ ” His hands curl and uncurl nervously on the table in front of them.

“Would you have preferred I didn’t?”

“You’re feeling better,” Bruce observes in a monotone, glancing out the window and then back up at Tony. “I would never want you to die for me.”

“I love you,” Tony says, the words spilling from his mouth before he can really think about them. But what else does he say here? He’s not very articulate with his feelings and anything he would have said at this juncture would have just boiled down to those three words anyway. “I told Ross I would start building weapons for him again if he let you go.”

Bruce just looks at him with those sad brown eyes. “Tony. Oh, _Tony_ ,” he says finally, as if he knows what Tony is really trying to say and he stands up and gets on his knees in front of Tony and buries his head in Tony’s lap. Tony’s breath catches in his throat and he leans down and puts his arms around Bruce’s shoulders, sort of rocking him gently and fuck, it’s very possible that they’re both crying a little.

He’s got nothing, nothing but his own hands to protect Bruce with. The suit is irreparable on the plane and he doesn’t have a gun or a bomb or anything to make a real weapon with. This is the day Tony never thought would come: the day he wishes he still manufactured weapons. What he wouldn’t give right now to be able to launch a Jericho missile right at Ross and have him disappear from Bruce’s life in an explosion of flame.

 _I can’t let them take you_ , Tony thinks, and then revises that. _I can’t let them take you from me._ Bruce raises his head and stares at him, and Tony realizes he’s spoken out loud. In response, Bruce reaches up and loosens Tony’s tie, unbuttons a few buttons on his shirt. Carefully, he brings his lips to the arc reactor embedded in Tony’s chest and Tony rests his chin on Bruce’s head.

They stay like that for what could be minutes or days or months or years. Time is mostly irrelevant to them at this point. Eventually, Bruce does end up sitting up and they end up the two of them, limbs intermingled, in one seat, Bruce’s head on Tony’s shoulder, hands clutched tight together. This is how they remain when the plane lands in New York City, neither one daring to make the first move.

It ends up not mattering, because the move is made for them. There’s a sound of a door opening and of feet, heavy but quick. Bruce’s eyes widen in alarm and he twists his head towards the noise. Tony reaches a hand to his check and pulls his gaze back to him. And then they kiss, slowly, raw, gentle, intense, clingy, like it’s the last time.

“Tony Stark.” They pull apart, stand up to face a contingent of police officers and military members., all with guns pointed at them. Beside him, he can practically smell the Hulk rising beneath Bruce’s skin. “Mr. Stark, you are under arrest for the harboring of a fugitive, for aiding a fugitive wanted by the United States government, and for conspiracy to aid and abet said fugitive in resisting arrest. You have the right to remain silent, and anything you say can be used against you in a court of law-“

Bruce snarls, skin turning green, muscles growing beneath his shirt. To Tony, it’s like being underwater, like he’s seeing everything from very far away. There’s a shout from one of the military members that he doesn’t really register, and then there’s a shot, and Bruce is still for a moment and then he falls, incredibly human, incredibly fragile. For a moment, Tony remembers Rhodey saying something about stun guns and sedatives and he lunges for Bruce’s body because _he is not going to fuck this up, not Bruce, not this time._

Someone grabs him before he can get to Bruce, though, and drags him away, handcuffing his wrists behind his back. He struggles but it doesn’t work and in his peripheral vision, he can see a contingent of people in military uniforms gathered around Bruce, who lies prone on the floor. The police officer pushes him again, and that’s the last he sees of Bruce before he’s lead away to the car.

***

For “protection”, Tony isn’t placed in with the other unsorted inmates in jail. He ends up in a small cell by himself, one the officer snidely informs him is generally used for drunks who need to sober up. He can’t muster up enough energy for a snappy comeback to the dig at his reputation. Instead, he lies on the bench in the cell and stares at the ceiling, replaying the arrest scene in his head over and over.

Fuck, Ross is smart, he realizes. They were expecting the Army to storm in and fight Bruce. Instead, Ross planned it all out so they were taken off guard. Once they’d distracted both of them, it was easy to get the kill shot in, the one that gave them Bruce. And he, Tony, had been easily dealt with; they would probably keep him locked away while they got a head start. Ross _had_ to know that whatever they did, he would come after Bruce, and he’d made it so Tony would be stuck dealing with the legal system for a long time.

Another officer shows up and tells him to decide who he wants his phone call to be to. He debates: Pepper, S.H.I.E.L.D. or one of the other Avengers? Finally, he picks Pepper, if only because she’s the most likely to be convinced to bail him out. The officer watches him dial the number of her office.

He doesn’t even get a word in before she starts. “Tony, where _the hell_ are you? I’m watching the news right now and they’re showing you being arrested for- are you in jail right now? Are you seriously calling me from jail right now, Tony?”

“Pepper, look, I’ll give you a raise and double overtime and an extra week of vacation-“

“Week? If I have to come bail you out of jail, I want a month!”

“A month, whatever, if you come down here right now with a briefcase of case and pay the bail so I can go home and deal with General Ross.” 

Pepper is silent on her end of the line for a minute, and then she lets out a sigh that might also be a sob. “Fine. Fine. I’ll send Happy down to the jail to bail you out. And then, Tony, then we are going to have a long talk.” 

“Pepper? What’s really going on?” he asks, but she’s already hung up. Suddenly, something clicks in Tony’s mind, and carefully, deliberately, he pulls his fist back, and punches the cinderblock jail wall. _Well, fuck._


	8. Chapter VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a really fun chapter to write. Can we all agree that Nick Fury is just awesomeness personified? Yes. 
> 
> Usual disclaimer: I don’t own anything you recognize.

In the end, Happy doesn’t have to bail him out. Yet another officer comes in and tells Tony, in the most disapproving voice possible, that because of some legal technicalities, he’s not being charged with any crime. The officer ignores the scraped and bleeding knuckles on his right hand.

The limo is waiting for him right outside the jail, and Tony keeps his head down and ignores the throngs of paparazzi that have gathered. Were he to say anything to them now, a few dozen lawsuits would probably be filed against him by the end of the day. 

Pepper is sitting in the back, back ramrod straight, hair pulled back, resolutely refusing to look at him. Tony looks at her for a moment before sitting next to her, and a visceral hate rises in him.

“You _bitch_ ,” he snarls.

She turns to him and her eyes are a brilliant bloody color as she crumbles from his insult. “How’d you…how’d you know?”

“I’m a genius, Pepper, a _fucking genius_. You didn’t think I would have figured it out somehow? You, my dead father, Rhodey, S.H.I.E.L.D. and Bruce are the only ones who know that I synthesized vibranium, and of those, only you and Bruce knew when I was going to be in Monaco.”

“Tony, really, I swear, I didn’t-“

“-have a choice? Bullshit, Pepper. _Bullshit_.”

“I wasn’t going to jeopardize my freedom to protect your boyfriend from the United States government!”

“So this is about me dumping you?”

“Tony, I am absolutely. Not. Having. This. Discussion. General Ross came to see me and he showed me the evidence and the legal documents. Dr. Banner is a fugitive and I can’t let this company be accused of harboring a fugitive while we’re bidding on at least seven different government contracts.”

“It’s not your job to decide what’s good for the company or not. You sold me out to Ross because you’re pissed off that we broke up. If you hate me that much, why the hell did you even come back?”

“I love my job, Tony.” She’s crying in earnest now, but if she’s trying to elicit his sympathy, it’s not working. “Yes, I was upset that you broke up with me, but I got over it. But I love working for Stark Industries, I love being part of what you do. And I refuse to see something I love get ruined because your stupidity.”

“It’s not your company! Why do you think it says ‘Stark’ on the tower?”

“You told me the next tower would say ‘Potts’ on it, Tony,” she reminds him sadly. “I don’t care that that’s not going to happen, but you should remember how much I’ve done for the company, how much _you acknowledged_ I did for the company. I ran the thing while you were sleeping with every attractive person you could find, while you were dying, while you were locking yourself away in the shop in the basement. I guided it after your press conference in Afghanistan and after ever other PR disaster you managed to create. You can’t tell me that I don’t care about what happens to Stark Industries.”

“You’re my personal assistant, Pepper. I don’t know where in your job description it says that you get to sell me out to the government just to protect the company. I’ve pissed off everyone in Congress and they’re still lining up for my tech anyway. Ross is a personal problem and I’m going to deal with him personally.” 

“And let your company fall apart, _again_ , so you can go off on some suicide mission to fight the Army?”

“To rescue Bruce,” Tony corrects.

Pepper blinks for a moment, and wipes a few tears off her face. “You love him, don’t you?”

The question catches Tony off guard. “Pepper…”

“No, Tony.” There’s a scary sort of ferocity in her expression. “You’d let your company fall apart for him, wouldn’t you? You’d sacrifice everything you have to rescue him and be with him again, don’t even try to deny it.”

Tony swallows hard and stares straight ahead, then finally, stiffly, nods. There’s an awkward silence and then _snap_ \- Pepper slaps him across the face.

“What the hell?”

“That’s for being an idiot,” she says, fighting tears, and then there’s another sharp pain to his face as she slaps him again. “And that’s for breaking my heart.”

The only thing Tony can think of to say is, “You’re fired.”

“Perfect, because _I quit._ I quit, Tony, for real this time.”

“Good, because I don’t want to see you ever again. Happy, pull over.”

Pepper grabs her bag from the floor and turns to glare at Tony. In the moment before she gets out, her reddened eyes narrow and a few more tears fall.

“Did you love me this much? Ever?” she asks him, voice low and mutinous. 

Inside Tony, his desire to hurt this woman who sold him and Bruce out to Ross collides with his knowledge that he did, in fact, at one point, love Pepper. He closes his eyes, and finally, picks the most honest answer for once in his life.

“I don’t know.” 

She glares for moment and turns on her heel as she gets out of the car. As she marches away, Tony realizes he doesn’t feel a damn thing, and on the heels of that thought: he doesn’t care, he’s got more important things to worry about. Like Ross. And Bruce.

***

Sure, Tony’s seen purported magic before in the form of Thor and Loki, but in his mind, the one with the real magic is Nick Fury. He’s standing in Tony’s living room when Tony returns to Stark Tower, with no indication or explanation of how he got in.

“JARVIS,” Tony starts, but Fury cuts him off.

“Sit down,” Fury tells him, eying the bruises and cuts on Tony’s face, the scabs that are beginning to form on his hand, and the stitches on his temple. Tony remains standing because hey, it _is_ his living room and how the hell did Fury even get in, and he can swear he sees Fury rolling his eye. “You’ve managed to piss off some pretty powerful people, Stark, and I have to say: I’m not surprised.” 

“Is there a point here, Nick? Because I have a rescue mission to plan.” Okay, so he’s never been into plans. But he _has_ a plan: find Ross, kill Ross, rescue Bruce. Once Fury’s gone, he can work on the specifics.

“I’m here to tell you that you _don’t_ have a rescue mission to plan,” Fury corrects. “We’re monitoring the situation and you playing knight in shining armor is not going to make things better.” 

“The knight in shining armor joke? Hysterical. But really, monitoring? Whatever happened to ‘keeping other interested parties’ away?”

“Let’s just say that we know more about the situation then you do, Stark. If we have any reason to believe that Dr. Banner is legitimately in danger, we’ll deal with it.”

“Ross shot me in the chest and basically admitted to me that he wants to torture Bruce, I’m pretty sure that qualifies as _in danger_.”

Fury doesn’t look impressed. “I said we’re monitoring the situation.”

“Yeah, well maybe I don’t like the way that sounds. You guys can look out for your super secret special interests all you want, but I don’t need your permission when I want to go fight a guy who pissed me off.” 

“When you joined-“ 

“You recruited me!” He rounds on Fury. “You recruited both of us, you should have seen this coming.” He means they should have known that Tony was going to do something they didn’t like and that the Army would come after Bruce. But there’s another meaning to his words, and Fury picks up on that right away.

“I didn’t start the Avengers Initiative to be a dating service,” Fury snaps. “Regardless of your attachment to Dr. Banner, I have an agency to run, one that has to negotiate and compromise with the U.S. government. I don’t get to make decisions based on your love life, because believe it or not, the world does _not_ revolve around Tony Stark.”

“You can’t stop me,” Tony points out. Really, what is S.H.I.E.L.D. going to do? He has the suit and he has his computers and his robots and Rhodey on speed dial. He can find Ross and rescue Bruce, and Fury can just fuck off.

“I can sure as hell try.” Tony’s private elevator opens and before he can ask how the people keep managing to get in here without his security code, the last person Tony wants to see right now gets out, and he realizes that yes, this day can get a lot worse.

“Don’t let him out of your sight, Captain,” Fury tells the blond supersoldier, and Tony finally sits down and slumps on the couch in abject misery. 


	9. Chapter IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all know I don’t own Marvel, right?
> 
> Warning: this chapter contains a scene with torture and rape that could be triggering.

When he comes to, Bruce is on his back in a dim, windowless room. Every part of his body aches. He can feel bruises beginning to bloom beneath his skin. It’s possible he became the Other Guy, because all of his clothes are gone and this feels a lot like waking up from one of those…episodes. His vision is a little blurry, but he takes stock of his environment anyway. He’s in a cell, one a lot like the one on the Helicarrier, a glass circle in the center of a larger room. For a moment, he wonders if S.H.I.E.L.D. is in on this, but he’s interrupted by another realization: There’s an I.V. line in his arm.

His brain is hazy, but even in this state, he can put two and two together and that the haze plus the I.V. mean that he’s drugged. Experimentally, he tries to move his other arm. Nothing really happens. He’s not really paralyzed but it’s pretty close- he’s aware of his surroundings and the pain, but he can’t move much beyond a twitch or a blink or a breath.

There’s unfortunately only one solution here. 

Bruce closes his eyes and searches every part of his brain for anger, for the Other Guy. He tries to force him out from under his skin, like he sometimes does in battle.

Nothing.

He tries again. He can feel the Other Guy there, in the recesses of his mind, lurking there, but he can’t force it out, can’t physically complete the change from Bruce Banner to Hulk.

Whatever technology Colonel Rhodes had mentioned Ross was developing, well, Bruce is now experiencing it firsthand, he realizes. Ross has him trapped in his own mind, unless…

He tries to force sound from his lips. It’s guttural and low, but it’s there. Another question arises: can he talk?

“Hello?” he asks no one but himself. So that’s settled. He can talk, he can make noise, he can move a little (very little, really) but he can’t become the Other Guy. Conclusion: this does not bode well. He closes his eyes again and lets the haze take over.

“Banner!” Someone is calling his name and he doesn’t know who it is. There’s a tug at his arm and his eyelids open to the sight of his I.V. line being ripped out. A few masked men (he thinks they’re men at least, from the way they’re built, military men probably) are standing above him. Out of habit, he scans the surrounding area; there’s a video camera set up and he can only imagine what that’s for.

“We have four hours to get this done,” one reminds another. “The drugs wear off after that long.”

 _That’s good to know_ , Bruce thinks, and then, _Get what done?_

“This part shouldn’t take long,” says another voice. 

“Damn right it shouldn’t.” It’s Ross, unmasked, but recognizable to Bruce by his voice. He’s holding a screwdriver and Bruce can’t figure out for the life of him what he would need that for in this cell.

Someone grabs him and drags him by the arms and he makes multiple noises of pain, which the masked men ignore. One of them kicks him until he’s lying face down, and as much as he tries, he can’t raise his head to see what’s going on, can’t twist himself back on to his back. He can hear things though, hear the soft hum of the video camera being switched on, hear the movement of feet around him.

A set of hands grabs his ankles and another set grabs his wrists and holds them down and he braces himself for the inevitable pain of being hit with the screwdriver in the general’s hand…

There are not words for what happens next, for the pain of having the plastic end of the screwdriver driven into him. He clenches his eyes and mouth shut but that doesn’t work and he screams and screams, trapped in his body, unable to move, unable to escape. Over and over the screwdriver is pushed roughly into him and there’s laughter, he can hear it as he tries to scream over it, one of the masked men saying, “Fucking fag, you like this, right?” The pressure on his ankles and wrists increases and this time it’s the metallic end of the screwdriver inside him and pain pain pain _pain_ he can’t think through it just _screams and screams please make it stop make it stop this needs to be over make it stop I’m not here right now make it stop I’m somewhere else somewhere with Tony I want run I want to leave **make it stop!**_

He has no frame of reference for how long it continues but eventually, it stops and he lets his face fall and rest on the floor while they taunt him. The pain refuses to stop, but it’s taken on a new form, a dull throbbing. Thankfully, he doesn’t think there’s blood- he’s seen a case like this before, when he was in an African warzone. That boy, bleeding, shrieking in pain, he’s never forgotten that. And this, this is going to be burned into his brain forever.

They drag him to his feet and he vomits even though he could swear there was nothing in his stomach. He can’t really move and they laugh more and pull him along, his feet weak and shaky. Ross gives them directions, something about “processing” but he’s too far gone to pay much attention to what’s going on anymore. Words flow over him and all he can see in his mind is the floor as they held him down.

 ***

The first thing they do is cut his hair. It takes only two minutes for all the curls Tony had liked run his fingers through to be clipped away, replaced by a graying quarter-inch pelt. After that, they shove him into an icy shower, the spray almost painful but somehow soothing on all his bruises. When they pull him out, someone forces a pair of loose scrub-type pants over his damp legs. There’s another stretch of being dragged through a maze of hallways and then he’s brought to cinderblock room with assorted medical equipment and deposited roughly into a chair. He still can’t really move so he just sits there and tries not to think.

More masked people, some of them possibly female, come in. One of them sits in a chair opposite his, holding a clipboard and pen. The questions begin, albeit with a warning first. 

“If you don't cooperate, we will repeat what happened earlier in the cell. Is that clear?” He nods, because he’d do almost anything to stop that from happening again, ever.

It’s like a standard medical intake form: name, age, birthday, allergies, what medications he’s on, past surgical procedures. They measure his height and weight, shine a light in his eyes to check his pupils, listen to his heart with a stethoscope. They draw blood, seeing as he’s still somewhat paralyzed (even Bruce doesn’t know if the Other Guy would ever allow a tourniquet to be placed around Bruce’s arm, or a needle to enter his veins) and dilate his eyes to verify his prescription. As the exam goes on, he can feel himself growing stronger, but still not strong enough to resist or run. The medical team has clearly timed this, because they move on to taking samples of other body fluids. He’s brought to a bathroom and given a cup for a urine sample, and when he’s done with that, they bring him to another small room and give him another cup and curt directions.

He can stand now and move his hands, and he assumes it’s nearing the end of the four hour time period. The embarrassment of this is slightly tempered by that fact- at least now he can do this himself. It doesn’t take long, thinking of Tony and his hands running down Bruce’s chest and his mouth sucking and biting and the way he teases and torments him, and during that time, Bruce isn’t a military captive in who-knows-where but back in New York and Malibu, safe between soft sheets, safe in Tony’s arms.

His temporary bliss is over all too soon. He gives the cup back to the masked people, trying not to think too much about what’s in it or what they might want to do with it, and the tests begin again. This time though, they give him another I.V. and the paralysis seems to fall over his limbs almost instantly. Then they hold him on his side and do a spinal tap and compared to the pain earlier, the needle in his back is nothing.

Finally, two of the masked people drag him back to his cell and drop him to the floor and he lies there, in pain, alone, unable to move. The haze takes over again, and he lets it, because it’s the only escape he has. 


	10. Chapter X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this chapter is a little…happier. 
> 
> I don’t own Marvel, okay? Okay.

To be clear, babysitting Tony Stark was not Steve’s idea. But Fury had needed someone to watch him, and Clint and Natasha were Elsewhere with a capital E, and Thor was off in another dimension, so the job had fallen to Steve.

Honestly, he hadn’t been doing much of anything because work for S.H.I.E.L.D. anyway. Mostly, he’d been taking a few classes online, one on post-1950s world history and another on 21st century literature, as well as reading books on the technology he’d missed. A few times a week, he did some volunteer work with World War II veterans at a local hospital, but that hadn’t been as fulfilling as he’d hoped. They were in their 90s and reaching the end of their lives, and even though he’d seen some of the same things they had, he was really just beginning his. Whatever camaraderie he’d been hoping for hadn’t materialized.

When Steve thought about it, the thing he really missed was the sense of belonging. He’d always liked that, being part of a group, working together for a shared goal, whether it was with the Army or the other Avengers. Joining the Initiative had helped, made him feel like he had a purpose, but making sure Tony Stark didn’t go do something stupid wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind when he signed on.

On the other hand, Tony had remained relatively quiet so far. He’d sat and stared out of the huge windows in his living room for awhile, and then he’d gotten up, brought over a bottle and a glass, and drank his way through some liquor that Steve figured had to cost as much as some cars. He hadn’t made any snarky comments or called Steve any names, hadn’t even commented on the Consumer Reports Steve was perusing (he’d rejected all offers of computers from the team and had set out to research and pick one for himself).

“I’m going downstairs,” Tony announces, standing up. He doesn’t look the least bit drunk but Steve isn’t the best judge of that.

“Downstairs?”

“Workshop. Come on.”

Steve sighs and closes his magazine. The look on Tony’s face is scaring him a little. It’s not quite maniacal, but too intense to just be labeled ‘purposeful’. There’s something brewing in Tony’s brain, something Steve is almost certain he doesn’t want to know about. 

“What are you going to do?” Steve asks him cautiously while they’re in the elevator, and Tony gives him a strange look.

“I need to update the suit. You can go back to reading about substandard electronics.”

Tony’s workshop is dimly lit and filled with machines that Steve can’t even begin to fathom a purpose for. It smells a little like gunpowder and burned rubber. A security code is required to enter, and Steve has a strange feeling when he walks through the door, like he’s invading someone’s most personal space.

“You can sit there.” Tony indicates a tall chair pushed against a wall, and Steve does as he’s told. He tries to keep reading about MacBooks and Dells and hard drives, but eventually he gives up and watches, fascinated, as Tony works.

The person Steve sees in the workshop is totally different than the person Steve usually sees. This version of Tony Stark peels off his button-down shirt and works in suit pants and an undershirt, sweaty, motor oil on his hands and face, hair sticking up. Absently, Steve wonders if the public, put-together version of Tony Stark is just an illusion, like playing dress-up for the masses. He has no idea what Tony’s even doing, but it’s like watching an artist work on their masterpiece.

Maybe an hour later, Steve finds himself yawning and leans his head on the wall. He knows he shouldn’t, because he needs to be watching Tony, like Fury said, but he closes his eyes anyway. He’s not quite awake, just asleep enough to dream. 

All of Steve’s dreams are about the war, no matter how many things he experiences in the twenty-first century. Sometimes, they’re about HYDRA and sometimes they’re about Bucky, and usually they’re about Peggy. This time, he dreams about the workshop and his shield and holding it in his hands, this amazing metal that there might not be more of, and Peggy holding up the gun and Howard explaining fondue…

The smell of metal is overwhelming and he smiles a little when he sees the dark-haired man hold up something red and gold and shiny, examine it in the muted light.

“Are we going to be here all night, Howard?” he asks, smiling, because he has the feeling Howard Stark might keep him here forever if that’s how long it takes for him to find something absolutely brilliant. And then Howard turns to him, slowly, and Steve’s smile fades. The man isn’t Howard, is too old to be Howard, has a goatee and not a mustache, and hair that sticks up wildly instead of being slicked back. He blinks and realizes he’s in Tony’s workshop in New York City instead of Howard’s workshop in the war zone.

Tony just glares at him. This somehow emboldens Steve to ask the question that’s been taking up space in his head for awhile now.

“Why do you hate your father so much?” 

The billionaire’s glare intensifies. “What’s it matter to you, Capsicle?”

“Howard was my friend. I owe him a lot and I’ll never get to repay him,” Steve says calmly. 

“You were his pet,” Tony corrects. “You were proof that he was a genius, so you were worth his time.” The bitterness in his tone makes Steve recoil a little. “And without him, you’d have spent the war being beat up on the streets in Brooklyn. Sounds like you guys really cared about each other.”

“What do you know about caring about other people?” Steve snaps, feeling like this conversation has happened too many times already.

Tony’s face is suddenly alight with anger, pure, unadulterated anger, and it makes Steve recoil. “Why are _you_ here, exactly?”

“To make sure you don’t do anything stupid,” Steve answers uneasily.

“To make sure I don’t go rescue Bruce. Which, I don’t know about you, but I think qualifies as ‘caring about something’.”

Steve drops his gaze for a second, and when he looks back at the other man’s face, he doesn’t see anger any more, but torment. He thinks of the few affection moments he’s seen between Tony Stark and Doctor Banner, one in particular coming to mind: Tony, at the end of a battle, removing his helmet standing in front of the crouching Hulk, and kissing the Hulk on the forehead. He swallows and tries to formulate an appropriate response.

“You really love him, don’t you?” Sure, two men or two women in a relationship wasn’t ever a public thing in the forties, but Steve’s hardly an idiot- those kind of relationships have always existed, and he knows love when he sees it.

Tony narrows his eyes. “If it were Peggy, you wouldn’t listen to S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“How do you know about Peggy?”

“My dad. She used to come over on the anniversary of your crash and they’d talk about how special you were.” The touch of sarcasm isn’t enough to bother Steve, not compared to Tony’s previous statement.

“If it were Peggy, I would have ignored Fury’s orders,” Steve admits quietly.

There’s a pause, and it’s not awkward or uncomfortable, just silent, and then Tony’s familiar smirk returns. “Fury said for you not to let me out of your sight. He didn’t say we had to stay in the tower.”

Steve returns his smile. “If you locate Ross, I’ll find Clint and Natasha. How long until the suit is finished?”

Tony throws him a phone. “JARVIS, start a program to search the government’s list of secure facilities. Focus on Pennsylvania like Rhodey said, and anything General Ross is involved in.”

“Should I include gamma radiation experiments in my search as well, sir?”

“Yeah, do that.” He turns back to Steve. “Suit’s gonna take about an hour. My last one got destroyed in my fight with Ross and Bruce was gonna help me finish this one here.”

“I don’t know much about engineering, but I can help you somehow when I finish with Clint and Natasha,” offers Steve.

For a moment, Tony’s expression is unreadable, but then he nods. “That could work.” He looks at Steve and there’s a palpable level of discomfort in his face. “And Cap?” It’s Steve’s turn to nod, watching Tony intently. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Steve gives him a half-smile, but internally, he knows he’s just gotten the highest praise he possibly can from Tony Stark. 


	11. Chapter XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t own Marvel. Yet.
> 
> This is an angsty chapter. But I promise (and you can all hold me to this) that there’s gonna be a decently happy ending here, because I love these characters too much to give them anything but. 
> 
> In the mean time, if you want something to cheer you up, go to this link- http://www.one2gifts.com/one2gifts/upload/images/201207/goods_img/2364_G_1341838047483.jpg -and have a picture of a really adorable, huggable-looking plush Hulk. Because that just makes everything better.

The next time Bruce wakes up, he’s lying on the floor of the cage again, staring up at the ceiling. He’s still in pain ( _don’t think about that, don’t think about it_ ), sore and bruised from the events of the past…days? Hours? There’s no natural light in this cell, and no way to discern the passing of time.  It’s possible he’s been out for minutes. It’s possible he’s been out for weeks.

There’s no longer an I.V. in his arm. Curious, he once again, he goes through the same tests he did last time, starting with the attempt to move his fingers. This time, it works, and he discovers that he can move his arms and legs and head. He’d consider this a victory but doesn’t, because it just means that Ross wants him conscious and moving for whatever horrible reason. 

When he feels a little stronger and more aware, he sits up gingerly. It takes him another minute to catalogue everything that he’s feeling and everything that he remembers.

He remembers waking up in the cell and not being able to move. He remembers the…attack? Attack. Settling on that word (and really, it’s not the right word but are there right words for what happened?), he moves on in a failed attempt to _not think about it._ Right. He remembers having his hair cut, and he runs a hand over his head, which confirms that his memory is correct. He remembers the cold shower and being given the pants he’s currently wearing, and he remembers the medical exam.

Next, his mind turns to a few more pressing matters. First, he’s starving. Second, he needs to get the hell out of here. Where exactly _here_ is is causing him some problems: sure, it’s a government facility, but in what part of the country? Is he even still in the United States? (He wouldn’t put that past Ross.) From the depths of his brain, he pulls up a memory: Colonel Rhodes saying something about rural Pennsylvania. Well, that doesn’t help very much.

Then there’s the issue of getting out of this building. It’s almost tempting to let the Other Guy out and smash down the whole operation, but Bruce knows that that’s a horrible idea. This cage is definitely designed with the Other Guy in mind, or Ross wouldn’t have Bruce in it. And even if he managed to smash his way out of this place, he wouldn’t have control of what the Other Guy did after that. He’s not going to break out of a government-controlled prison just to kill innocent people in the process. The thought itself makes Bruce a little sick, and he groans.

His only hope is that someone will attempt to rescue him. There’s no question in Bruce’s mind that Tony will try, but he also knows that Tony is one person and not indestructible. And god, how awful would that make Bruce feel, to have Tony injured (or worse, but he’s not going to think about that either) in Tony’s attempt to save Bruce?

If he were going to be honest, he’d like to be rescued by the other Avengers, excluding Tony. People he knows are capable and people who might even care about him, but in the end, people who, despite maybe being his friends, are not Tony. Because what would be the point of being rescued if Tony isn’t there for him at the end of it all?

It’s not that he doesn’t care about Clint and Natasha and Steve and Thor, it’s just that in the end, he’ll always care about Tony more. If he had to pick, he’d choose Tony’s life above any of theirs.

Would he pick Tony’s life above his own? Would he choose to remain here, possibly being tortured by General Ross and the military, if he knew that Tony would die otherwise?

Yes.

Despite what Tony says, Bruce’s life is not worth much. He might be a genius, but _giant green rage monster who can smash anything he wants_ is not exactly a trait anyone wants on his or her résumé. Anything Bruce can do with his brain, Tony can do better, and he’s not about to destroy entire city blocks just because he gets little angry. Between that and the arc reactor technology and the Iron Man thing, Tony’s worth at least 100 of Bruce. Tony disagrees of course every time Bruce makes a comment about it, citing the weapons manufacturing and his tendency to self-destruct, but it’s (in Bruce’s mind) one of the few times Tony is really ever _wrong_.

As much as Bruce loves Tony, when he’s feeling low, not as low as he’s been, but low, he knows he doesn’t deserve him. Tony might once have been known as the “Merchant of Death” but he can redeem himself, use his genius for good. Bruce can work in slums with sick children and in Tony’s labs on the arc reactor development, but he can never erase the evil that lies beneath his skin. He doesn’t deserve someone who loves him the way Tony loves him.

Maybe he deserves this. Maybe he deserves to be locked up. Perhaps Ross is right. He _is_ evil, isn’t he? Dangerous, destructive, he’s a threat because he’ll never have control, really. He’ll always be a monster, and nothing is going to change that.

Bruce takes a breath, _in, out_ , and another, _in, out_ , and lets this ugly truth (it _is_ the truth, he’s convinced himself it is) wash over him. On the heels of that comes another truth: if he deserves to be locked up like this, he shouldn’t be rescued.

Defeated, he curls himself up into a ball on the floor. He isn’t even really Bruce Banner anymore, just a human shell for a monster. He doesn’t look like himself anymore, doesn’t have any control over his violated and beaten body. 

Is he angry? He doesn’t think so, not beyond the anger that always lies far at the back of his brain. Acceptance is far from anger. Defeat is far from anger. The truth that he’s just accepted could make him angry, but it doesn’t, because what is there to be angry about? In the end, he’s just a savage beast in a broken container and anger isn’t going to fix that.

When more of the masked laboratory assistants come bearing medical equipment, he doesn’t even put up a fight. Something in the back of his mind tells him that this is what they wanted, to tear him down so they could experiment on him, but he doesn’t pay attention to it. 

They start by shaving patches of hair on his chest and head and attaching various electrodes to the exposed skin while he lies on a gurney. The people slip out to take cover behind the glass, leaving him alone in the cage, and he knows they’re planning on forcing the Other Guy out of him somehow.

At first, the sensation is bearable, a slight electric current at his temples and chest. But Bruce is smart, and he knows that this isn’t going to last forever. He steels himself for more electricity, and after a minute, there’s another round of shocks, stronger this time.

The shocks grow stronger and faster, with less time in between each one. His breathing grows more rapid, his heart rate increases, and he knows that with each surge of electricity through his body, he’s becoming less and less human.

At some point, it begins to burn, literally burn him. The stench of singed flesh permeates the air, and through the pain, he can practically see his skin turn red and black and blister. Someone is screaming and it’s him, it’s all him, as the electricity courses through him and his skin is incinerated and then everything goes green as the electrodes rip from his skin and all he can feel is relief as the Other Guy roars his way from his charred body. 

The people on the other side of the glass shriek and cower and that’s okay because what else does one do when confronted with a monster? Before the Other Guy takes over completely, Bruce can think of only one word for this and it’s so strong on his tongue he can practically taste it.

_Relief._


	12. Chapter XII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve run out of creative ways to write my usual I-don’t-own-Marvel disclaimer. I don’t own Marvel. There. Disclaimer. 
> 
> This is the Clintasha/BlackHawk chapter! It’s a nice break from all the angst, I think. Unless you love angst, in which case, rest assured that the angst shall return soon.

All in all, Natasha is not really _surprised_ when she gets the call from Cap. She knows the Army and Ross have been after Bruce for a while now, and she knows that S.H.I.E.L.D. can’t always avoid getting involved in politics. Put those two things together and it was always a possibility that this would happen. Natasha’s maybe even expected that something like this would happen ever since she went to India and brought Dr. Banner back with her.

What she didn’t expect was Stark’s involvement, and by involvement she means his relationship with Dr. Banner. She hadn’t really seen them work together in the lab on the Helicarrier, but she’d seen the way Stark treated him when they met on the bridge, and how the Hulk had saved him from falling to certain death. At first, she’d thought it was just a close friendship, like Clint and her (so maybe that wasn’t the best example, after Budapest and Loki), but it hadn’t been. When she thought it over, it should have been obvious from the beginning. She’d never seen Stark shake hands with anyone else or be that _nice_ to someone before. And the way the two of them were together when they’d gathered to watch Thor take Loki back to Asgard…Frankly, she’s fine with it. It keeps Banner happy and keeps Stark from bothering everyone else.

What Natasha _is_ surprised by is how…okay….Stark seems. She’s seen him at his worst, that time when he was dying and drinking and practically killing himself every way possible. That was the Tony Stark she was expecting, not the version that’s sitting across the table from her in one of his many conference rooms, manipulating computer screens that appear in mid-air.

Cap is watching him, although Natasha can’t decide if that’s because he’s actually paying attention to what Tony is doing, or because he’s just amazed by the technology.

“Stark,” Clint says from her side, and the billionaire looks up at both of them through what looks like a map. “What’s going on?”

“So Bruce and I were supposed to be on this nice relaxing vacation in Monaco- car races, champagne, sex- all that good stuff, and I meet General Ross in the elevator of the hotel, where he tells me he wants to arrest Bruce, I threaten him with my old Stark Industries weapons arsenal, and he yells at me. I call my friend in the Air Force and we go to meet him in Paris, where he tells us that Ross has a research facility in rural Pennsylvania and some gamma experts that he’s been saving for Bruce. Bruce tries to escape, but Ross finds us, shoots me, we end up on a plane back to New York City, and when we land, we both get arrested. I do a couple hours in jail, fire my assistant, Nick Fury shows up in my living room, telling me not to go after Ross, and leaves Capsicle here to babysit me. I decide that I’m gonna ignore him, convince Cap to join me, he calls you, I work on rebuilding my suit while having JARVIS search for this place that Ross has.”

“Wait. Fury told you not to go find Ross?” Natasha asks.

“Yeah, didn’t I just say that, or do you not understand English?” Stark’s eyes aren’t on her anymore but on the map.

“Agent Barton and I work for S.H.I.E.L.D., Stark. We can’t just disobey Director Fury and join you on your rescue mission.” She glances at Cap. “You’re free to go if you want, Cap. But I can’t do this.”

For some reason, she’s angry. Rogers, the innocent blond solider boy, _tricked_ her. There’s nothing in her life but S.H.I.E.L.D. and she owes them her life, she’s not about to burn that bridge in the name of Tony Stark and love. They brought her here and then they assumed that she’d just go along with it.

“Fury was the one who brought us together as a team,” Cap says, looking her straight in the eye. “He can’t expect that we wouldn’t go rescue one of our own.” 

There’s a response almost on her lips, something about ‘How could you expect I would just disobey Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D.?’ but it dies when she sees the look on Stark’s face. It’s one she hasn’t seen since she worked for him as Natalie Rushman, one that she hasn’t seen since he was dying. It’s defeated and vulnerable, the look of a man who knows exactly what he stands to lose.

He’s asking for her help.

Natasha is positive that if Stark were to put his (admittedly brilliant) mind to it, he could figure out a way to shake Cap and take the suit and find Ross. But, she realizes, he knows how that would end, and if he wants Dr. Banner to survive this, he’s going to need the kind of help that only the other Avengers can provide.

In her peripheral vision, she can see Clint turn to her, but she doesn’t give him the chance to say anything.

“We’re in. What do we need to know?”

Rogers smiles at her approvingly, and Stark brings up another monitor, talking them through scans and searches and data points. Under the table, someone puts their hand on her thigh and without looking, she knows it’s Clint.

Neither of them acknowledge it, but he keeps it there until they get up to leave.

Cap insists that they all sleep, at least for a few hours while JARVIS finishes up some details on their plan of attack, which is how Natasha finds herself in one of the guest suites in the tower, hair damp, wrapped in a towel, watching TV. The sleeping was really for Tony and Clint’s benefit only- the Serum and a 70 year nap mean Cap doesn’t need much sleep, and the drugs the Russians gave her let her run for hours and hours with no rest.

There’s a knock on her door and she panics ever so slightly. Sure, she’s gone on missions and done all sorts of compromising things that would make normal women feel undignified, but she is not at all ready for any of the other Avengers to see her when her guard is done like this.

“Natasha?” Clint, the only person on the team who would be an exception to her aforementioned concern. She opens the door.

“You should be asleep,” she tells him. He ignores her and sits at the end of the bed, motioning for her to join him.

“You made the right call back there,” he replies, as if this is the logical thing to say.

“I still don’t like it,” she confesses. “I don’t like the idea of directly disobeying Fury just because of Stark’s love for someone.”

“Not all of us hate love, Natasha.” He’s laughing now, laughing at her, and this makes her annoyed, just a little. Love is not something she’s very familiar with, not something she’s ever felt the need to make time for. It’s ugly and messy and ruins people and things. Even when she’s felt what she thinks is love for someone, she’s ignored it. Clint of all people should know this.

“Love is for children.”

“Then come be a child with me,” he suggests, and kisses her on the lips, slow, gentle.

They’ve done this dance before, and every time, she feels strangely out of place in her own body. She’s let a million different men and the occasional woman seduce her when she’s gone undercover on missions. She’s participated in every extreme deviation and every extreme vanilla act and everything that falls in between, with one catch: she’s never truly _made love_. The number of times she’s gotten into bed with someone she actually likes and cares about can be counted on one hand, and they’ve all been with Barton. He loves her (why is that, she wonders, because there’s nothing about herself that she finds remotely lovable), he’s told her that, but to his credit, he rarely brings it up. But now, tonight, is the first time he’s actively tried to seduce her, tried to convince her that love is real and should exist between the two of them.

To her surprise, she leans into the kiss, reciprocating, and instantly feels pleasure in how this feels and betrayal, that her body is willing to overpower her mind for this.

“Clint,” she says, maybe in warning, maybe in passion, she can’t tell. They kiss again, and it’s careful and respectful and caste.

His hands come to rest firmly on her waist, and the kisses grow longer and open-mouthed. Doubt floods her mind- she can’t identify the feeling she has for Clint, but she doesn’t know what to do here, because she refuses to treat him like she treats the other people she sleeps with. This is not a mission. What she does here, it has to matter, has to be _special_.

Already he’s removing his cotton T-shirt and pants someone lent him to sleep in, and Natasha takes a moment to privately marvel at his body, because even though she’s not a normal woman, she’s still a woman. The towel she’s wearing slips a little and the look in his eyes as he loosens it and lets it pool around her waist scares her little. It’s too tender to be desire, and desire is the only feeling she usually encounters during sex.

Personally, she’s never been a fan of foreplay (she’s a busy girl, things to do, places to go, so might as well keep it quick and to the point), but then again, she hardly ever does this as Natasha Romanoff and not someone else. It’s pleasant, she decides, as he lays her back and leans over her, licking at her breasts, sucking and teasing. But he doesn’t belabor the act- he knows her and her preferences.

He takes time to angle his hips and align their bodies, and she wraps her legs about his tightly and holds the sides of his hips. His arms are braced by her shoulders but he eventually brings them down so they’re chest to chest and he can kiss her neck and face.

The whole process is long and slow and intense, as if he wants to prove to her that she’s worthy of being treated with such consideration and devotion. Afterward, he lies down next to her and pulls the blankets over them both, rolling onto his side and reaching out to brush a few locks of red hair from her damp forehead.

“You don’t have to stay,” Natasha tells him, because why set anyone’s expectations too high? Clint just spoons himself against her back and takes one of her hands.

“But I want to,” he whispers into her ear. They’re silent after that, and she waits until she hears steady, soft breathing that indicates that he’s fallen asleep to contemplate that maybe, for the first time in her existence, she’s just made love. 


	13. Chapter XIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note- Still don’t own Marvel. Meh. Sad.

Tony can’t sleep. He knows he needs to, but this is one thing his brain can’t make his body do. Somewhere, he’s got a stash of sleeping pills that he was prescribed years ago, but he promised Bruce he’d stop relying on them. Besides, they’re in the master bedroom, and he doesn’t think he can deal with going in there right now.

Right now, he’s lying in bed in one of the many other bedrooms in the Tower, blankets pulled up over his chest to hide the glow of the arc reactor….

_…coming home from a three-day conference on clean energy and finding Bruce sleeping with a blue night-light in the room and teasing him about being afraid of the dark and Bruce saying, “It’s not quite as nice as having you and your arc reactor in the bed with me, but since I can’t sleep without that blue glow anymore, it’s the best I can do”…_

He rolls over and there’s the crunching sound of paper under his torso. Right. One of Bruce’s books. Before he’d moved into Tony’s room permanently, he’d come in here to read, claiming the light was better. He picks it up and pulls back the covers to examine the book in the light of the arc reactor. It’s the tattered book Bruce had found at some second-hand bookstore…

_...”You know that that’s a movie now?” Tony says, looking at Bruce’s battered copy of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries and Bruce sort of rolls his eyes and says that he saw the movie in India and he didn’t really get into it and Tony snorts and says, “What, were the actors not attractive enough for you?” because he really likes making Bruce blush the way he is now, all pink and awkward and adorable, and Bruce mumbles something about the actor who played Holmes and how he’d be more attractive with facial hair…_

Fuck, he still can’t sleep. Finally, he opens up the drawer in one of the bedside tables and hopes that it has something that’ll put him to sleep inside it. He pulls out a few condoms and some lime-flavored lube. So no…

_…”I didn’t know you liked lime,” Tony says when Bruce picks the flavor out of all the bottles he’s got lying around. “I thought you tried to avoid green things.” Bruce gives him a look and says something flirty about how there are lots of things Tony still doesn’t know about him and he’s got those big brown perfect bedroom eyes and Tony has to ask what else Bruce hasn’t told him and Bruce laughs and mentions a few things like the affair he had with one of his professors as an undergrad and being so broke he considered donating sperm in college and being allergic to watermelon and Tony files all this information away in his brain…._

He opens up the drawer on the bedside table on the other side of the bed and pulls out a bottle of Motrin….

_…”Motrin is for women with PMS,” Tony tells Bruce, as Bruce pops a few orange pills into his mouth and swallows. “I can’t believe you have opinions like that about over-the-counter painkillers, Tony,” Bruce replies, rubbing his temples and Tony’s momentarily distracted by Bruce’s hands and the way they look so large but can be so gentle on Tony’s body. “You need therapy or something.” And Tony just looks at him and rolls his eyes and tells Bruce about how he went to therapy as a teenager and ended up getting into a fistfight with the shrink that culminated in Tony beating the man with a framed diploma from the wall and Bruce just shakes his head and says that clearly, Tony needs a doctor and Tony kisses him and tells him he already has a great one right here with him…._

Everything in this room is reminding him of Bruce and that’s making it impossible to sleep. He ends up staring at the ceiling, remembering the first time he kissed Bruce and the first time they had sex and the first time they said ‘I love you’ and all the other sappy romantic stuff he pretends he doesn’t care about, until his reverie is interrupted by JARVIS. 

“Sir, one of your corporate email accounts has received a message from an encrypted sender.”

Tony blinks and sits up, reaching up and pulling a reading pane from thin air. Normally, he’d save those emails for the days he actually does consulting work (what is it, every other Thursday?), but encrypted senders? Something’s weird here, and Tony doesn’t like it. He doesn’t have to have a reason to, he just doesn’t like it. If someone really wanted to have him consult on some project, they’d leave their name and address and all that.

“JARVIS, run a program on the video to decrypt the sender’s address,” he says, opening up the message. There’s no words, just a video attachment. “And tell me if this is safe to watch or not.” 

There’s a moment in which JARVIS scans the footage, and then he says, “I can find no viruses or other problems with the attachment, sir. Although I feel I should warn you that the content may upset you.”

“May upset me? I’ve been-“ He stops in the middle of his sentence as the video starts playing.

The quality isn’t the greatest, and it has the feel of a home movie, but it’s clear that the man lying face down on the ground is none other than Bruce Banner. He’s naked, barely moving, and anger flares inside of Tony. There are men wearing ski masks holding Bruce’s wrists and ankles down. General Ross hands another masked man a screwdriver and that man kneels down and _damn it_ , Tony knows exactly where this is going. 

Watching Ross and his men shove a screwdriver into Bruce while he screams makes Tony sick and he has to swallow multiple times to make sure he doesn’t vomit. When they flip the screwdriver around and use the metal end in their assault, he ends up picking up the nearest breakable object, a lamp, and throwing it across the room at the wall. 

Frequently, Tony is told that he’s a selfish person, but he’s pretty damn sure that his feelings of possessiveness are warranted here. This is Ross attacking Bruce, _his_ Bruce. And Tony is just sitting here, watching it. No fucking way. No.

He rips off the blankets and runs down to his workshop, where the suit is, packed up in its case. He’s wearing the bracelets he uses to call it to him, and he takes the case and runs back up the stairs.

There’s not enough time to get Cap or Clint or Natasha. He doesn’t know when the attack happened, but seeing it is enough to convince him that he needs to go _now_ and can’t wait for the backup he had brought in. They can figure out where he’s gone later. Right now, he can’t think about anything but saving Bruce.

He suits up, aided by the bracelets and the robots out on the balcony, and then he blasts off, rising up above the New York skyline.

“I need the coordinates you found, JARVIS,” he tells the AI, and a map appears in front of his eyes inside of the helmet. He’s gotta go southwest. “And I need to get there fast. Increase the power to the thrusters.”

“Of course, sir.”

From inside the helmet, Tony watches the ground go by, watches the terrain change, and marks this as progress, as a small victory. He’s getting somewhere. He’s getting closer to Bruce. 


	14. Chapter XIV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven’t managed to buy Marvel since I last updated, so still, nothing you recognize is mine.
> 
> And thank you to all of you who left kudos and/or commented! I know I've just dumped chapter after of chapter of angst on you, so I'm glad you like it!

“Get up.” Someone is kicking Bruce in the side. He moans. The transformations have always taken a lot out of him, but this time, he feels particularly awful. Maybe it’s the drugs Ross and his minions have been pumping him full of. Maybe it has something to do with being electrocuted. In any case, he just wants to curl up and die.

“I said, get up!” Another kick, and a laugh.

Bruce closes his eyes and musters enough strength (god knows where that’s coming from, they haven’t fed him since he got here) to stand up shakily. He wobbles for a moment, and then falls back down.

“Fine.” And then someone’s holding his wrists and ankles down again, and someone else is holding up that screwdriver again, wearing a smirk, saying, “I know you like this, faggot.”

Knowing what’s coming does not make the experience better. Really, it makes it worse, because he knows how it’s going to hurt and that he’ll try not to scream and eventually he will scream because it hurts so horribly. 

 _I am not here_ , he thinks. _I am not here._ He tries to imagine that he’s somewhere else, maybe back in New York or Malibu or in Paris, anywhere else, but it doesn’t work when he’s in so much pain. And on the heels of that, the dark voices that are constantly nagging on his conscious: _You are a monster, you deserve this._

_Monster. Murderer. Evil._

He screams and his breathing turns into pants and snarls. None of his attackers show any signs of mercy. If anything, it makes the thrusts quicker and more intense. Bruce can barely move, but there’s one thing he has that they don’t, and he realizes this as his arms turn green. Suddenly, the screams are not his own, but the screams of his attackers, and he’s pushing them down as the monster bursts from his body.

 _Hulk smash._ A giant green fist connects with one of the men below, and he falls, lying motionless and bleeding on the floor. Another swing, and the man who held Bruce’s wrists is prone on the floor, gushing red from his nose and mouth.

 _Mean humans._ The man who had been holding the screwdriver is snatched from where he stands, cowering, and slammed back into the floor like a rag doll, over and over.

One of the other men gets to his feet, in an attempt to run, but the Hulk doesn’t let him, picking him up and throwing him against the side of the cage, to the point where the wall shakes. He hits the ground without a sound.

Military men and women, guns drawn, burst into the cage, and the Hulk growls at them. _Hulk fight._

A hail of bullets begins. The ordinary ones don’t even phase the Hulk, who treats them like a mere annoyance. Some of them sting, and some of them lodge in his skin, and he roars. Still, there’s not very much that can stop the Hulk, much less slow him down. He charges through a group of soldiers like they’re the cheap plastic toys.

 _Snap._ Something cracks in the air, like the sound of a whip, and his vision blurs and there’s an excruciating pain in his leg. This time, the Hulk makes a noise like a wounded elephant, and rounds on the direction of the offender. Another _crack_ and the pain spreads to his arm.

 _Hulk fight._ But he can’t see very well anymore, and there are more noises and more pain, and everything is loud and fast and blurry and he growls and snarls and snorts and the world is darker is dimmer is black.

***

Bruce can barely open his eyes. He’s back to his human form, but the Hulk has taken all of his remaining energy. The I.V. is back in his arm, and he’s now lying on a gurney, straps binding his wrists, neck, and legs. The numbness and paralysis has returned, because every effort he makes to struggle against the straps is futile. He can’t move.

“You killed three of my men,” a voice says from overhead. General Ross’s face comes into focus, angry, jaw locked.

 _I am a murderer_ , Bruce thinks, because as much as he hates himself at this moment, he will never ever give Ross the satisfaction of hearing that come from Bruce’s lips. _I am the monster that everyone believes me to be._

“If I have my way, Banner, you’ll never leave this building ever again. You’re a threat to everyone you meet. Did you really think that you could be human? How did you delude yourself into thinking that you could hide the monster that you are? Was it Stark? Was it the sex? Was it….,” he pauses for effect, his face contorted into a mocking sneer, “ _love?_ ”

Bruce can’t move enough to shake his head. It wasn’t Tony that made him think he could be real person, at least not a first. In the beginning, Bruce’s only purpose had been survival and prevention and redemption. Stay away from stress, learn to control the Other Guy, save as many innocent lives as possible in an attempt to make up for the damage he’d done. But then, Tony had made it his personal mission to show Bruce that not only _could_ he have friends and a real home and somebody in his bed every night, somebody who loved him, but that he _should_ have all those things. 

But it can’t be Tony’s fault, never will be Tony’s fault, because Bruce won’t let it be. _He_ was the one who made the decision, sealed his fate, really, when his one night at Stark Tower turned into a week which turned into kissing Tony which turned into a month which turned into sleeping with Tony which turned into their relationship and Bruce sticking around in New York (and Malibu and Europe and wherever else Tony happened to be).

“Believe me, Banner, if I’d known how to do it, I’d have killed you at the first opportunity, and I wouldn’t have lost a minute’s sleep over it. For what you did to my men…for what you did to my _daughter_ , you deserve to die.” He holds up a syringe. “I have you paralyzed, I have you bound, and I have this. Strongest poison I could find. Some of the best chemical engineers worked for years to develop and test this, just so I could have this moment. You should be flattered. Your death is worth millions in military funding.”

Ross holds the needle to the skin over the vein that lies in the crook of Bruce’s elbow. He turns to face someone outside the glass. Bruce twists his head ever so slightly, because that’s all he can do, and he glimpses another person he thought he’d never see again.

Betty.

His vision is fuzzy and she’s feet away, but he can make out the shape of her face, the white of her shirt, the hands that she’s holding clenched in front of her chest. Time has blurred Bruce’s memories of her features, but she’s still beautiful, even though she’s clearly aged.  There’s a diamond ring on her left hand, one big enough to be visible even from where Bruce lies, and he thinks about how, at one point in his life, he had wanted her to be his forever, to be the person he woke up next to every morning. He had wanted her to be the other person in his white-picket-fence dream.

That seems very long ago now. Bruce catches her eye, and she recoils. _I hurt you even though I loved you so much_ , he thinks, a pang of regret tinting his thoughts. And then there’s rush of hate- _if you loved me like you said you did, the Other Guy shouldn’t have mattered._ As he looks at the ring on her finger, he feels absolutely nothing.

Betty nods resolutely at her father, and the needle enters Bruce’s vein. There is no pity on her face, no mercy. She has chosen her path, he knows, and he has chosen his. _Had_ chosen his.

“I’m not sorry,” she says, or at least that’s what Bruce hears from behind the glass wall that separates them.

***

The liquid burns his veins, scalds his heart as the blood makes its way through his body. His eyes open and shut as he drifts in and out of consciousness. Sometimes, he sees things, hallucinates animals eating at his flesh, or violent whirls of color in the air.

Mostly, he sees Tony. Millions of memories flow through his mind- Tony kissing him for the first time on the balcony of Stark Tower, Tony working in the lab on the Helicarrier with him, Tony in the Iron Man suit. Occasionally, he sees Tony through the eyes of the Other Guy, bright, shiny, fragile, _friend_. He remembers a battle, Tony’s face, the mask discarded, the brush of his lips, the scratch of his goatee up against the face of the Other Guy.

 _You loved me despite the Other Guy,_ Bruce thinks. _You loved me **because** of the Other Guy. You loved me, period._

Overhead, there’s something red and gold and he wants to touch it but he can’t reach. He’s going to die, but Tony is here Iron Man is here and he’ll be okay he’s going to die but he has Tony with him so it’s okay it’ll be okay.

“Bruce.” Tony’s voice through the suit mask. “Bruce.” Metal fingers, cool and sleek, touch his neck, his arms, his legs.

“Tony.” The restraints are gone and he’s being lifted by the metal arms and is he awake or dreaming? He buries his face into the chest piece of the suit, where the arc reactor is. “Tony Tony Tony.”

“Bruce. Stay with me.” Iron Man shakes him a little. “Stay with me.”

“Tony.” His head feels heavy and his limbs are numb. “I love you you should know…I love you, Tony.”

“Come on, Bruce. Bruce! I love you. Fuck, you can’t do this, _I love you. **Bruce**._ ”

“I can’t, Tony…I can’t…I love you I love you…I love….”

And Bruce’s world closes in around him and there is Tony and he is safe he is happy he is at peace as his world fades to nothingness. 


	15. Chapter XV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fear not, this is most definitely NOT over. I’m not THAT mean.
> 
> I don’t own Marvel. Yeah. You knew that.

Natasha wakes with a start, sitting up and reaching for her gun. Someone’s knocking on her door again, loudly, and calling her name. Beside her, Clint is stirring, but she doesn’t give herself time to think about him as she jumps out of bed and puts on the first clothes she can find. Gun drawn, she rips open the door.

“Agent Romanoff?” It’s Cap, dressed in his street clothes, hands held up in surrender. “Are you all right?” He looks genuinely concerned. Suddenly, she realizes that she’s wearing Clint’s shirt. Damn.

“Yes, fine.” She lowers her gun. “What’s going on?” Hopefully, Clint won’t get out of bed and make this any more awkward. Steve isn’t the most…aware…when it comes to things like this, but he’s not an idiot. Why else would she being wearing Clint’s shirt while he sleeps in her bed?

“Tony’s gone,” he tells her.

“Gone?” Clint asks, and damn, he’s standing right behind her, looking exhausted and only wearing a pair of pajama pants. “Gone where?”

“I don’t know,” Steve replies.

Natasha sighs internally. Of course Stark would call them in to help and then run off somewhere on his own. Unless…could he have been kidnapped? Someone should have been supervising him. Fuck. This is not good.

‘Give me a minute and we can figure this out.” Steve nods, ever the gentleman, not commenting her desire to send him away as she closes the door in his face.

Her suit is neatly draped over one arm of the sofa. Reaching for it, Clint catches her eye.

“My clothes are in the other room.”

“Here.” She strips off his shirt and tosses it to him. “Put this on. You can change later.”

“Nat.” His tone is unreadable and she thinks he’s about to fight her, but he just pulls the shirt over his head and pulls her in closer and gives her a kiss on the mouth.

***

Cap has set up in one of the upstairs rooms. He’s sitting a table next to a man in a military uniform whom Natasha recognizes as Tony’s friend from the Air Force. He reaches out a hand to shake hers and introduces himself as Colonel Rhodes. To his credit, he doesn’t do a double-take when he sees that Clint is wearing pajamas.

“Why don’t you tell us what you know, and we’ll tell you what _we_ know?” Clint suggests. The authority of his voice is undercut by his wrinkled T-shirt and drawstring pants.  

“Tony left a voicemail on my phone asking me to come to New York as soon as possible. He said he needed me to meet with you three and take you somewhere. According to his instructions, there’s a particular one of his private jets I’m supposed to use, one with coordinates programmed into it.”

“When did he leave the message?” Steve asks. 

“About three hours ago. I’d just gotten off my flight from Paris to New York.”

“And that’s all he said?” Natasha raises her eyebrows. “No other details?” 

“No.” Colonel Rhodes shakes his head. “A few days ago, we met in Paris to talk about General Ross and Dr. Banner, so I assume that’s what this has to do with? He didn’t give me any details though. Not like I was expecting any from Tony.”

He gives Natasha a significant look, as if to say “Your turn” and she in turn looks at Steve, who’s better prepared to explain everything, and who seems to have some sort of military man bonding thing going on with the Colonel.

“We don’t know where Tony is,” Steve says simply. “It’s possible that he went to rescue Dr. Banner from wherever General Ross has him. I attempted to access his labs and personal rooms, but JARVIS didn’t let me in. Security clearance issues.”

“I could probably help you with that,” Rhodes suggests. “Have you been able to contact him?”

“No. I’m assuming that you haven’t been able to get in touch with him either?”

“I tried. He’s not answering.” He sighs. “Are you intending to go after him?”

“I don’t think we have another choice,” Clint says. “If he’s left of his own volition, he’ll need our help. If not, then we need to make sure we don’t lose _two_ members of our team.” He fixes Rhodes with a look. “What are you intending to do, Colonel?”

“I’ve been Tony’s babysitter for years. Don’t see a reason to stop now.” This bit is said with a touch of a smile, but it disappears quickly. “I don’t know what you three have seen, with S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Army, but I don’t think Tony knows what he’s gotten himself into. General Ross has been out to get Dr. Banner for years and he’s almost certainly got tech that can take down anyone who gets in his way.”

There’s silence while they all acknowledge that Rhodes is probably right, and that if Tony has really gone after Ross, he’s just himself in extreme danger. On the heels of that, Natasha contemplates what it means in terms of Tony’s feelings for Bruce, and Tony’s feelings about himself, and how they all weave together. 

“If you know anything else about Ross, now is the time to tell us,” Natasha says.

“It depends.” Rhodes’ voice is thoughtful. “Are you doing this to take down Ross or to rescue your teammates?” 

“Our first priority is getting Bruce and Tony out of there unharmed,” Clint says. “But if that means we have to take Ross down, we will.”

“What you intend to do and what Tony intends to do are probably different things.” The ghost of a smile returns to Rhodes’ face. “But you three are probably acutely aware of that.”

“Most definitely,” Steve agrees. “I think we need to decide now, then, if we’re going to stand in his way if he tries to take down Ross.”

There’s a period of what could be minutes or what could be hours as the four look around at each other, each afraid to be the first one to speak. Finally, Clint breaks the silence.

“Are we going to be able to?”

“I doubt it. Tony’s reckless and irresponsible, but he’s a determined son-of-a-bitch when he wants to be, and he’s got a vendetta against Ross now.”

“If Ross is going to come after Dr. Banner no matter what, is it in our best interests to eliminate him as a threat now?” Clint asks. “Do we really want to be doing this again in a month? In a year? In ten years?”

“We’re already defying S.H.I.E.L.D. by going after Tony,” Cap reminds. “Best to prevent any more fallout. How do you think they would react if Ross was killed?”

“Ross is a thorn in our side. He’s a competing interest for an asset.”

All four turn to the doorway, where a black-robed figure is standing.

“I thought you didn’t want us to rescue Dr. Banner.” Cap gazes up at Fury, the look of innocence on his golden-boy face in a way that only he can pull off.

“That was before we dug up intel that suggests that General Ross is intending to permanently put Dr. Banner out of commission.”

“Ross is intending to kill Dr. Banner?” Natasha’s voice comes out more shrilly than she intended. Clint reaches out for her hand beneath the table and squeezes it.

“That’s right. I’m authorizing you to do anything and everything in your power to bring back Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark alive.”

Cap studies Fury for a moment. “With all due respect, Director, your permission wouldn’t have made a difference for us. We’re a team. And we’re going to go rescue the rest of our team.”

Fury says nothing but Natasha gets the impression that he’s actually quite proud.

***

“This is the plane,” Rhodes says, but he sounds apprehensive.

“Colonel, what’s wrong?” Natasha and Clint exchange glances. Something in Rhodes’ tone and expression betray a fear of something significant.

“This isn’t a private jet,” Rhodes says finally. “This plane…it’s from when Stark Industries manufactured weapons. It’s a prototype that was designed to carry the Jericho missile.”

“The Jericho missile?” Cap looks confused, and Natasha remembers that he wasn’t awake when Tony was captured.

“It’s the most powerful weapon Stark Industries ever designed,” Rhodes explains. “It has the capacity to destroy a huge amount of space, miles of space, at one time.”

“Is there a missile on board?”

“I don’t know. But we’re going to have to take it. It’s got the coordinates of Ross’s hide-out programmed into it.” Rhodes closes his eyes. “Tony’s set everything up.”

 


	16. Chapter XVI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw the Avengers again on Sunday (thank you, college screening! I knew there was a reason I picked this place xD) and I wanted to write this epic battle scene, or at least a battle scene. So voila! Battle scene. 
> 
> Idon’townMarvelsorry.

_Fuck._

In his head, Tony scraps all of his previous plans involving a slow and painful death for Ross and instead replaces them with _get the hell out of here as soon as possible_. He’s clutching Bruce to his chest, bridal style (and this is not quite how he imagined getting the chance to do this), and trying to figure out how he’s gonna get out of here without backup, without being noticed, and while carrying another person.

He shakes Bruce a little, trying to keep him awake. Ross has him pumped with some sort of drugs that are making him incoherent. He’s slipping in and out of consciousness, and he’s absolutely white. Tony knows he has to get him to a hospital and a doctor, maybe even the S.H.I.E.L.D. medical center on the Helicarrier.

“Bruce. _Bruce._ Wake up.” He shakes a little harder, and Bruce’s eyes flutter open for a few seconds before closing again.

“He’s not going to wake up.”

That voice. Tony would know that voice anywhere. He doesn’t even need to turn his head, but he does, staring into the eyes of another old foe.

“Justin Hammer. I thought you were in jail after that….incident with Vanko?”

“Funny how that works. It turns out that the military is always in need of new ideas, and they’re willing to bend a few rules to get those ideas. How do you think Ross was able to come up with the new weapons to fight the Hulk? Now that you’ve turned into some sort of gay flower child, _someone_ has to protect us from the monsters under the bed.”

“He’s _not_. _A. Monster._ ” There’s a dying man in his arms, someone Tony loves, and all he’s doing is standing here. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing that you’ll be able to stop.”

For a second, Tony thinks he’s going to drop Bruce. He’s blinded by anger, anger at Hammer, anger at Ross, anger at Pepper and the Army and S.H.I.E.L.D. “ _Tell me what you did to him!_ ”

“I got my revenge,” Hammer snarls. “I had the chance, I had the tech, and you, the great Tony Stark, took that from me. You disgraced me and Ross gave me the chance to get my pay-”

Before he can finish his sentence, Hammer collapses on the floor, an arrow in his neck.

“Stark.”

“Barton.” He nods at Clint. “Tell me you have a way out of here.”

“This way. Cap and Nat are clearing the place out.”

“Great. What about Ross?”

Clint purses his lips. “If we find him, he’ll be taken care of.” He glances at Bruce. “What happened?”

Tony doesn’t answer because he doesn’t want to have to explain to Barton that he doesn’t know. If there’s one thing he hates more than not knowing something, it’s admitting to someone else that he doesn’t know something. And fuck, he needs to know what happened because it’s life and death and it’s Bruce, and fuck why does it have to be Hammer?  

“JARVIS, forget about the scan. I need Bruce’s heart rate. Tell me if it drops below 60 beats per minute.”

“Dr. Banner’s current heart rate is 67 beats per minute, sir.”

“Shit. How long do we have?”

“At this rate, Dr. Banner’s heart rate will drop below 60 beats per minute in three minutes, 45 seconds.”

“Barton, _go!_ ”

They’re running now, the arrows just streaks as more and more people fall. This is almost too easy, and normally Tony would question that, but given the limited time, he doesn’t say anything.

“Sir, Dr. Banner’s heart rate has fallen to 66 beats per minute. You have exactly 3 minutes and 5 seconds.”

“Barton-“

“Tony!” As they round the next corridor, Steve is standing, fighting off bullets with the vibranium shield, and fuck, now it’s getting nasty.

“I never thought I’d be saying this, but I’m actually _happy_ to see you, Capsicle.”

“Glad to hear it. How’s-“ There’s a momentary pause while Steve sends a few bullets rebounding at whoever fired them- “Dr. Banner?”

“Just get us out here,” Tony snaps. “Where’s Agent Romanov?”

Cap smirks and nods towards a black and red blur towards the end of the hallway. “Clearing the exits. Are you going to be able to fight?”

“I’ve got the blasters on my shoulders.” Another bullet flies past Tony’s shoulder and he only just manages to dodge it.

“Not what I meant, Tony.”

“Sir, Dr. Banner’s heart rate is dropping rapidly. You have two minutes before you will need to administer CPR.”

“Kind of in the middle of a battle here, JARVIS.”

“Well then I would suggest you remove yourself from the battle as soon as possible, for Dr. Banner’s sake.”

More gun shots, and what sounds like Natasha strangling someone. Two minutes is not a lot of time to get out. _New plan needed,_ Tony thinks, but he can’t think straight, what with everything going on around him and Bruce in his arms.

“Stark! Barton! Cap! We’re clear.” _Thank fucking god._ Still dodging and weaving a few stray bullets from the guys Cap and Clint couldn’t take out, the three end up backing down the hall, Tony as fast as physically possible, Cap holding up his shield, Clint with his bow at the ready.

“Is Rhodey here with the plane?” Tony demands when they get to Natasha, trying not to focus too much on how long this is taking, or how white Bruce’s face is.

“Going somewhere, Stark?”

Fuck. Why does this keep happening?

Ross is standing facing them, Justin Hammer’s prone figure at his feet, and Tony suddenly feels very glad for whatever Clint has in his arrows.

“Stark.” Natasha’s voice is low. “Just go. You take Banner and go. We’ll deal with this idiot.”

“What did you do to him?” Tony growls at Ross, ignoring Natasha. He’s caught here. His two minutes are up, but he needs to know what Ross and Hammer did to Bruce if there’s any hope of fixing it. Or else….

“I could ask you the same question.” Ross indicates the man at his feet. He’s holding one of Clint’s arrows, presumably the one he pulled out of Hammer.

“He’ll get over it,” Clint says brusquely.

“You have absolutely crossed a line, Stark.” Ross is waving the arrow in their faces. “You bring your friends here to rescue your boyfriend, killing and injuring my men, and you expect that I’ll just let you out of here. I can have you arrested and turned over to the government. I doubt S.H.I.E.L.D will want that getting out, that everyone’s favorite superheroes broke into a government facility to rescue a mutated beast.”

“Actually, General, Director Fury sanctioned our mission last night,” Cap says calmly, like he’s ordering Chinese or something totally benign. “He’s decided that your interest in Dr. Banner is contrary to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s interests.”

Bruce is lying, completely limp, eyes closed, in Tony’s arms. He really, _really_ doesn’t have time for Ross right now. He wonders if there’s a way to run _now,_ but he can’t find one.

“Is that so?” Ross asks, advancing, but before he can do much, Natasha is there, her body contorting in ways that look inhuman, and Ross is lying unconscious on the floor on top of Hammer.

“Let’s go,” Cap says firmly.

Tony goes first, then Natasha and Clint, and finally Cap, who’s forced to use his shield to deflect more bullets. Ross seems to have snipers positioned everywhere in the building, and Tony knows that he’s got anti-aircraft stuff on the roof, just in case.

_It’s okay, you’ve got something better._

His heart is pounding like it’s been electrocuted and Bruce is barely breathing and his heart rate is slowing down and all Tony can do is run as fast as he can, JARVIS giving him directions as he goes. The distance is irrelevant, and he forces his legs forward. The suit isn’t the best for this, but he needs it, especially when he gets the call he’s been waiting for.

“Tony.”

“Rhodey.” The voice comes through the helmet, facilitated by JARVIS, and this might actually outrank being lost in the Afghan desert as the time Tony is most happy to see his friend. “Are you in the air?”

“I can see you from here. I’ll let you on.”

“You better.” And then they’re sprinting up the steps to Tony’s jet, and Cap is slamming the door behind them, yelling “Go! Just go!” as bullets pepper the outside of the plane. Meanwhile, Tony is already at the back of the plane, laying Bruce on the floor, looking for something, anything, to jumpstart his heart.

“JARVIS, tell me what we got.”

“Dr. Banner’s pulse is currently 20 beats per minute, sir. Your failure to begin CPR-“

“JARVIS, just find something onboard that I can use to fix this.”

“As I previously stated, you need to begin CPR immediately. I can inventory the aircraft for useful materials, but you need to keep Dr. Banner’s heart beating during that time.”

“Do any of you know CPR?” Tony yells at the four in the front of the plane. “Because if you do, now would be helpful.”

The others exchange looks that Tony doesn’t have the time to decipher the meaning of, and Cap makes his way back to where Tony is kneeling, sliding a little.

“You don’t know how to do CPR?” Cap looks at Tony incredulously.

“If I knew how, don’t you think I would be doing it right now?” He’s intending to stay back with Bruce and Cap and make sure that Cap doesn’t fuck anything up, because if this doesn’t work….

“Tony!” Rhodey and Natasha are piloting the plane now. “We’re taking fire from-“

“Yeah, I know. Move over.” He’s got a plan, one that’s going to fix this once and for all. Shoving Rhodey out of his seat, he grabs the controls, ignoring Natasha when she asks if he _really_ knows how to fly a plane. “Can you maneuver this thing? I need to be facing the building.”

“Stark, I don’t know what you’re trying to do but-“ Clint is sitting behind Natasha, watching.

“Just do what I say.”

It’s been years since he’s dealt with these controls, these details. He’s only got one shot at this and if it doesn’t work, a lot of shit’s gonna happen- S.H.I.E.L.D. and government and military and whatever. Like he cares. This is his chance, his chance at revenge against Hammer, against Ross.

“This is the best I’m going to be able to do,” Natasha says from beside him, and he’ll be damned if she hasn’t just set up the perfect shot.

“Tony. Are you sure you want to do this?” He doesn’t even know who’s asking the question.

 _Is_ he sure he wants to do this? After Afghanistan, he swore he’d never make weapons again, swore he’d never use them again. He swallows hard.

…. _Ross in the elevator telling him he’s going to take Bruce, Bruce’s face when he sees the photos, saying Tony made everything he’d been through worth it, the scene on the Paris runway, the video Ross sent to Tony…._

Tony pushes the button.

When he designed the Jericho missile, he meant it to be functional and powerful, but when he watches all the smaller bombs deploy, he realizes how truly beautiful it. Every piece working together to destroy Ross and Hammer and everything that’s hurt Bruce…as it goes up in flames, Tony watches. It’s twisted and horrible, but at the same time, it’s so, so beautiful.

 

 

 


	17. Chapter XVII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a casual reminder that I don’t own Marvel and also that I’m a PoliSci major who actively tries to avoid science classes and so…I can’t promise any of the technical medical stuff in this chapter is one hundred percent accurate. Maybe just focus on the angst instead? Because this bit is more angst, really.

Out of the people on the plane, only Rhodey really knows why what Tony just did is so significant. He’s staring at Tony, mouth set, and nods once, like he approves. Tony lets out the breath he’s been holding. But he doesn’t have time to think about what he’s done beyond that one moment, because he has Bruce to worry about. It also occurs to him that he’s never removed the suit, but there’s not much he can do about that now, as he kneels and watches Steve work.

“Sir, Dr. Banner’s heart rate is still dangerously low. At this rate, the chance of cardiac arrest-“

“JARVIS, find me some wiring I can rip out. And a toolkit, if there’s one on-board.”

“Stark, what are you _doing_?” Steve looks up from doing chest compressions on Bruce, aghast. “Are you actually going to rip the wiring out of the plane?”

“I’m saving a life, Rogers.” He gestures at Bruce, trying to tell Cap to hurry up, to get back to work. “Forget the wiring, JARVIS, I’ve got a better plan.”

“There is a toolkit in the storage in the back of the plane, in the second drawer from the left on the very top.”

Tony doesn’t have to be told twice. As fast as he possibly can, he makes his way to the storage drawers in the aircraft, pulling out the box, and returning to kneel by Bruce and Steve.

Getting the chest piece off by himself is not as hard as he’d assumed it would be, but as Tony puts it on the floor next to him, he’s suddenly very, very thankful he has robots to do this most of the time. Once he’s got it on the laid out, he works on disassembling it, working bit by bit, careful to save the wires.

The suit’s arc reactor is the important piece. Using a screwdriver to pry away the other metal parts, he exposes it, still attaching to the wiring. Carefully, he holds it in his hands, scrutinizing the wires until he finds the right ones.

“JARVIS, please tell me there are medical supplies on board.”

“There are indeed, sir. They are located in the drawer to the right of the one in which the toolkit was located.”

It takes literally thirty seconds for Tony to race to the back of the plane and return. He rips it open and digs around to find what he wants. Steve’s eyes go wide.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he asks, but Tony ignores him.

“JARVIS. I need everything you can find on temporary pacemaker insertion: videos, papers, anything and everything.”

“Sir, what you’re attempting to do is not-“

“I didn’t program you to be my parent, JARVIS.” He moves closer to Bruce, who is now completely unconscious but just barely breathing, thanks to Steve’s efforts.

It takes all his efforts to think and focus on what he’s doing. He’s never really had any medical experience, apart from dealing with his own arc reactor and does that really count? Still, he has to do this, he reminds himself, as he swabs the skin of Bruce’s neck with alcohol and picks up the long needle to remove its protective packaging.

 _Come on,_ Tony thinks, almost prays, _Come on, Big Guy. Now is not the time. I don’t know how you feel about needles but I’m trying to save your life, so now is the not the time to make an appearance._

He does all the things JARVIS prompts- applies pressure, holds the skin taut, waits for the given amount of time- and then gets to work with the wire, threading it through the needle. This is the hard part.

“I need X-ray vision here, JARVIS.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Granted, this is not what Tony imagined when he installed X-ray vision in the suit mask, but it’s pretty damned useful. Going an inch at a time, he works the wire through Bruce’s body (and fuck is this weird). Finally, after who knows how many awful minutes, he gets it to Bruce’s heart, as if it were the wire for a temporary pacemaker.

They wait. Steve continues CPR while JARVIS monitors Bruce’s heart rate. It takes another ten minutes before JARVIS says, “Sir, Dr. Banner’s heart rate is stable at 60 beats per minute."

Tony breathes in sharply and then exhales slowly, relief flooding through him, at least until JARVIS speaks again.

“However, he is still running on borrowed time. You may have counter-acted one of the effects of the poison, but it is still circulating through his system. Until you can take a blood sample, it is impossible for me to determine what the toxin is composed of.”

Tony does some math in his head, using every piece of data JARVIS has collected on Bruce’s condition and what he knows about the arc reactor and the abilities of the plane. The poison is still an unknown variable, and in a professional situation, his calculations would be totally and completely unusable, but this is a different matter entirely. If he’s correct with his math (and he usually, he’s Tony Stark), he has enough time to get Bruce back to Stark Tower and begin tests

“How long is that going to work?” Steve asks from where he’s now sitting, up against a wall, braced. Tony realizes this must be how he’s used to traveling on aircraft, from the military in the 40s.

“When calculated with all known variables, it should work for at least two hours.”

“Is that going to be long enough for us to get to S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“Who said anything about S.H.I.E.L.D.? I’m taking Bruce home.”

“You know we can’t let you do that, Stark,” Natasha calls from the front of the plane. “There are S.H.I.E.L.D. protocols we have to follow.”

“Dammit, Agent Romanoff, you know perfectly well that I don’t care about S.H.I.E.L.D. protocols.” _And I don’t trust them at all_ , Tony adds in his head, _and neither does Bruce._

“Tony.” Rhodey is using the voice Tony is so used to, the voice that indicates that the rest of the world is frustrated with him, when they’re viewing his eccentric genius as pure irrationality. “Let the experts deal with this, okay?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m smarter than any of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s so-called experts, Rhodey.”

“Tony.”

The voice is raw, pleading and weak, and very familiar. It makes Tony abandon all attempts to win his argument and instead, he returns to Bruce’s side.

“What’s….going on?” Bruce asks him, sounding as if he’s working hard just to force out those few words.

“We’re on one of my private planes back to New York City.” He puts a slight emphasis on the last three words. “I hooked you up to the arc reactor in the suit to keep your heart beating.”

Bruce just shakes his head slightly. “It’s…not…going to make….a difference.” He coughs a bit. “Can’t…breathe.” His fingers find Tony’s. “I…I love you… _Tony_.” His eyes close again, and Tony hates this, especially because they’ve already done this, back in the military facility, and no, he can’t have saved Bruce only from Ross only for this to happen now.

“You are not going to die,” he tells Bruce (or is he telling himself?). “You are going to be fine. You’re going to be fine and we can go to Malibu and back to Europe and…and we can get married and have kids and name them Bruce Stark and Tony Banner. I’ll give you the life you wanted before the Other Guy, I’ll give you anything, after you survive this.”

Bruce’s grasp strengthens slightly on Tony’s hand. “Tell me…tell me…you….love me.”

“I love you,” Tony says, automatically, and Bruce keeps his hold on Tony. “I love you and you. Are. Going. To. Be. Fine."

Silence. Bruce’s eyes close and his grip slackens as he slips back to into unconsciousness.

“Bruce!” Tony is standing over him now, desperate, shaking him, calling his name, panicking. In the background, Steve is yelling something to Natasha, and pulling Tony back.

“Tony, we’ll fix this, I promise.”

And he doesn’t know what else to do, so he rips the helmet away from his face and buries his head in Bruce’s chest, listening to the weak thud of his heart, the slow rasp of his breathing, the only forms of hope Tony now has.


	18. Chapter XVIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. All of you who reviewed. THANK YOU. I send imaginary hugs and cookies and such your way.
> 
> Nothing you recognize belongs to moi.

“How is he?” Clint asks as Natasha sits down next to him.

“Stark, or Banner?” In the light, he can see the shadows under her eyes, the heaviness to her lids, and imagines that he looks just as exhausted. They’re sitting in one of the never-ending corridors of the medical wing in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s headquarters. The entire hallway is deserted, save for the two of them.

“Both.”

“Banner’s on a ventilator now. They haven’t been able to stabilize his heart rate or breathing. Whatever Ross gave him is causing his heart to beat erratically, and they say the CPR wasn’t performed correctly.”

Clint shakes his head. “And Stark?”

“The doctors kicked him out of the room. He’s in the lab.” She leans back against the wall. “Cap is with Fury dealing with the government and the Army.”

“How bad’s the fallout?”

“Not as bad as it could be. Steve is good at this sort of thing. The severity of Dr. Banner’s injuries and the fact that Ross essentially broke Hammer out of prison for the project are working in our favor.”

“They haven’t threatened to arrest Stark yet?” If there’s one thing Clint is sure of, it’s that Tony Stark has managed to piss off everyone in the United States’ government and armed forces at least once. They’re not going to take this well.

“Not yet. They’re trying to pressure Fury into letting them take him, but he’s not backing down.”

“No one’s gonna argue with Steve, either,” he points out, and it’s true. Who wants to say they were the Army leader who disagreed with Captain fucking America 

“It’s not going to be a done deal until Banner stabilizes.” Clint can hear the unspoken meaning to what Natasha is saying- everyone is waiting to see if Bruce lives or dies before they make any decisions.

“Should someone be supervising Stark?” It’s a fair question. The man has a self-destructive streak almost as a wide as his considerable ego.

“Colonel Rhodes is with him. He seemed best equipped for the job. Stark’s working on an antidote for the poison, which should keep him sober and focused, at the very least.”

“That’s…”

“I know.” She exhales slowly. “When Steve returns, we need to consult with him on our next course of action. If Banner-“

“Nat.” His voice is sharp, and it surprises both of them. He didn’t mean it to come out like that, didn’t mean to snap. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Clint, you know as well as I do that we have to be prepared for any eventuality, even if it means the death of a teammate.” To her credit, she doesn’t snap back, but keeps her voice calm and level and low.

“I know what could happen, Nat. Every time we go out, there’s the chance we could lose someone. I’m used to it. But every time I see Stark’s face lately, all I can think about is what I would look like if you were the one lying in that hospital bed.”

When he turns a little to look at Natasha, she’s still facing the opposite wall, face blank. Emotionless, like she is nearly all the time.

“Are we really going to have this discussion now, Clint?”

“You didn’t seem adverse to it when we slept together.” 

“You know how I feel about love, Clint.”

“You can’t seriously tell me that after all of this-“ He waves his hand ambiguously, as if he can just pull up the events of the past few days with a gesture “-that you don’t believe in love.”

“Stark and Banner aren’t the example I would use to prove that love exists.” 

“Why not? Because Stark was willing to drop everything else he was doing and go save Banner when he couldn’t defend himself…” 

Finally, she turns to him, lips parted slightly, gaze steady. “Are you talking about what happened with Loki? That was fulfill my obligation, Clint, to wipe out my debt.”

“You never had to “pay me back”, Nat. Would you have done it even if you didn’t think you owed me?”

 In the sterile white light, her eyes are large and luminous. “Of course I would." 

“Then stop denying your feelings.”

“I don’t get the luxury of feelings. You saw firsthand who, _what_ , I am. I’ve always been this way.”

Clint leans in closer to her, lowering his voice. “I didn’t save you from all of that just so you could keep being the same person. You’re here now. You get to choose your path. 

“I’ve done horrible things...” They’re growing closer slowly, to the point where he’s whispering his reply right onto her lips.

“You saved me,” he reminds her, and they’re kissing again. If he had to describe what this feels like, Clint would say it’s a perfect shot after infinite numbers of practice shots, like they’ve finally got this thing they’ve been working towards for fucking ever. This is the most vulnerable Natasha ever gets and he refuses to take advantage of that, because what he said was true: she saved him. _He_ owes _her_ , really.

From somewhere in the background, there’s a subtle cough, and they break apart to find a very red Steve Rogers staring at them. It’s possible he’s more embarrassed than Natasha or Clint, and there’s an awkward moment where Cap mumbles something about not wanting to interrupt, and Natasha tries to defuse the whole thing.

“I talked to Fury,” he finally says once he’s able to speak coherently, and both Clint and Natasha stand up.

“What did he say?” Natasha asks. She’s focused and collected again, arms folded, all attention on Steve. Clint’s incredibly envious of this ability, and deep down, a little of jealous of her change in attention. Just because they’ve done this before doesn’t mean he can’t feel just a little bit turned on now, does it?

“The explosion at the facility is being blamed on an experiment gone wrong. There’s not going to be any mention of Tony or the Jericho missile in the papers, and no criminal charges.”

“How’d Fury manage that?” Clint asks. He’s not stupid; the military hates Tony, and it had to be a task, even for Nick Fury, to convince the military not to discredit one of their least favorite people publicly.

“General Ross is going to be buried with full military honors. Justin Hammer’s death is being kept out of the papers as well.”

“So Ross dies an accidental death as a hero, and nobody knows about our involvement?” Natasha summarizes. Her eyebrows are raised slightly. “And what happens to Colonel Rhodes?”

“Nothing.” 

“What’d Fury have to give up to swing that one?” Clint asks.

“Apparently the Air Force owed Fury a favor.” _That_ isn’t surprising.  There’s probably not one person involved in the government, the military, or S.H.I.E.L.D. itself who doesn’t owe Nick Fury something in some capacity. “So everyone gets what they want."

It’s true, to some extent. The Army gets to save face, none of the Avengers have to admit involvement, and Rhodes gets off with no punishment from the Air Force. But at the same time, it’s also horribly _not_ true.

“Not everyone,” Clint says, his eyes flicking down the hall towards the room Bruce is currently occupying, and then back down towards the other end of the hall, towards the lab, where he knows Stark is. Natasha reaches over to take his hand, and he squeezes it, not willing to let this sudden and rare display of affection go unacknowledged.

“Not yet,” Cap corrects, and they all nod, hoping against hope that he’s correct


	19. Chapter XIX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, wow, this is the second-to-last chapter! I hope you like it and it’s what you all wanted….By the way, I have no idea if any of the “science” here is legit. I’m assuming it’s not. Like I said, PoliSci major who’s taking a science class to fulfill her general education requirements…all that good stuff. My knowledge of this is limited.
> 
> Marvel and its characters are not mine.

For most of his life, Tony’s just expected that he’ll be able to find a solution to any problem that’s thrown at him. He’s rich, he’s brilliant, he has an incredible amount of time and resources at his disposable- why wouldn’t he be able to fix things? (This is, of course, excluding problems he makes for himself.) Normally, when faced with a problem, he’d be in and out of his lab, drinking a variety of healthy and not-so-healthy drinks, making his way through the problem to the inevitable solution.

This time, he’s beginning to doubt himself. He’s running on no sleep, no food, five cups of black coffee, and no time. Right now, Rhodey is watching him with these strange, sad eyes, and that makes Tony feel a little sick. That look can only mean one thing, and it’s not good.

“Tony. Maybe you should…take a break?” Rhodey’s voice is just like his eyes, abnormally gentle. Tony just ignores him. He watches the computer screen, and tries not to think about the last time he was here, in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s labs, looking for the Tesseract with Bruce….

“Tony.” This time Rhodey sounds firmer, like himself, and this is strangely soothing for Tony. “Take. A. Break.” He places his hand on Tony’s shoulder. “S.H.I.E.L.D. has its best people working on this. Go rest. Eat something. You’re not helping anything just sitting here and drinking coffee.”

“Rhodey-“

“Go.” Rhodey is pushing him out of the lab and down the hallway. He knows he’s supposed to go to the cafeteria or to his quarters, to sleep or eat or whatever, but there’s only one place besides the lab he wants to be. The hospital. With Bruce.

An I.V. is snaking its way into one of Bruce’s hands, and Tony slips the other one in one of his own. He can feel the callouses on the palms, the topography of the skin and bone and muscle comfortingly familiar. His free hand comes up to touch Bruce’s face, caressing his unshaven jaw. There are bruises on Bruce’s body that Tony isn’t sure he wants to know the origin of, and a lump on the side of his head. His hair has been cut down, almost to the scalp, and some patches shaved to the skin. Where the hair used to be is now a constellation of burns and welts, hidden beneath layers of bandages. The crooks of his arms are tracked with needle marks. S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors removed the arc reactor hookup Tony constructed, replacing it with a variety of monitors, tubes, and machines. 

Bruce’s breathing, amplified by the machine he’s hooked up to currently, is labored and slow at best, his heart rate erratic. Even if he wasn’t a genius, Tony would be able to take the way he looks now and put it together with the sympathetic looks from Cap and Rhodey and Clint and Natasha, and know that Bruce is closer to death than to life.

_Fucking Ross. Fucking Hammer. Of all the times HammerTech had to work….  
_

For a moment, Tony just sits there, running the thought over in his mind. _HammerTech._ And then he sits up straight, eyes widening. Leaning over, he brushes his lips against Bruce’s forehead, feeling infinitely more confident than he did five minutes previously. _He can fix this._

“I thought I told you to take a break,” Rhodey says when Tony bursts back into the lab.

“I know how to fix this,” Tony replies, pulling up data on one of the computer screens and flicking through it until he finds the right thing. “Remember all the HammerTech the Air Force had?”

“Vividly.” Rhodey is grimacing, like he’d really prefer not to be thinking about the failed weaponry that Justin Hammer sold him and his fellow officers. “It didn’t work at all." 

“That’s the point. Nothing that Hammer’s ever produced has worked. The drones he had were partially based on work that Vanko did.”

“There was that weapon he gave me that stopped working once it got wet,” Rhodey recalls, and Tony nods.

“Exactly. The solution’s not something complicated. All this time, I assumed it would be a complicated antidote when what I’m really looking for is something basic.”

“Like getting the poison wet.”

From Bruce’s blood samples, Tony’s been able to isolate the molecular structure of the substance Hammer developed for Ross, and he examines it on the screen. _Something simple_.

He starts with hydrogen, the most obvious thing he can think of, slotting the molecules in, and running computer simulations. It’s clearly nowhere near what he wants, which he could have guessed, but his work now, it needs to be flawless. This is Bruce and saving Bruce’s life and Tony will check and double check everything if he can, just to make sure.

In his simulations, he works his way from the beginning of the periodic table, left to right, trying each element to see if it’s the miracle he needs. While he’s examining the bonding of titanium to the poison, Rhodey walks up behind him, brow furrowed.

“You seriously going to try every element? I thought it would be obvious to you.”

“Care to explain?” Tony asks, removing titanium and bringing up the arrangement of protons and electrons in zirconium.

“You seriously didn’t think to check vibranium first? Come on, Tony, you’re losing your edge.”

_Of course_ , Tony thinks, and Rhodey’s right, it should have been obvious to him from the beginning. Ross knew that vibranium existed, but neither he nor Hammer would have had any idea of its molecular structure. It’s been keeping Tony alive for over a year now, _of course_ he should have tried it before he tried anything else. 

“See? Told you.” Later, Tony thinks, he’ll curse himself, really beat himself up, over the fact that Rhodey figured it out and he didn’t, but right now, his focus is on the computer, watching the way the electrons in vibranium bind to the poison and neutralize it.

“The suit. I need the arc reactor I ripped out of the suit.” For the first time in days, Tony allows himself, guardedly, to feel hope.

***

It takes him an hour but he manages to get ahold of the arc reactor he’d used to power Bruce’s failing heart, and then another hour to liquefy the vibranium and turn it into something that can be used in an I.V. During the whole process, Tony keeps half of his focus on the clock, praying that he can make this work, that Bruce can last until Tony makes it work, that it will work.

He sits back down in the chair by Bruce’s bed and watches as a nurse hooks up the vibranium solution to I.V., watches as the solution drips into Bruce’s veins. Clint and Natasha and Cap and Rhodey are there, standing a respectful distance behind him, prepared, Tony is sure, for the worst. He laces his fingers back into Bruce’s, and waits. Despite his best efforts, he finds himself closing his eyes, dreaming. He dreams about Bruce, the two of them curled together in bed, wrapped around each other, Bruce saying his name, _Tony, Tony._

“Tony.” A voice: quiet, weak, raspy, but very, very alive. 

The fingers entwined in his squeeze a little, and something akin to joy floods over him, a wave of relief, as he stares in Bruce’s eyes, and watches the person most important to him return. 

 


	20. Chapter XX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the last chapter! 
> 
> Just. Thank you to all of you who stuck with this over the past few months, and who reviewed and liked it and kept reading even when I stopped updating and…wow. You were all wonderful and I’m really, really glad you didn’t just abandon me.
> 
> Merci beaucoup!   
> Christina’s Inferno

_Six Months Later  
_

It’s Christmas. In this case, it’s literally Christmas, not just another testament to Tony’s genius and ego lit up in the sky. Outside the expansive windows, the snow is falling gently, glowing against the dark of the night. It’s idyllic, a picture-perfect setting, the kind that just demands hot drinks and snuggling under blankets.

Bruce is sitting reading, curled up at the very end of one of the leather sofas, reading some dense book full of equations and diagrams. His eyes are dark, focused and intense, making their way across the page like scanners. It’s endearing, his extreme concentration, in a way that only Bruce can be.

“Hey.” Tony sits down next to him, placing two champagne flutes on the table in front of them. Even though it’s a holiday, it’s just the two of them. Clint and Natasha are off in some country in the Balkans, deep undercover, Thor is still on Asgard, and Steve is doing typical Steve things: going to church, serving Christmas dinner to vetarens, visiting Coulson’s grave. Tony is grateful. Ever since the fiasco with Ross, Bruce has shied away from interaction other people, and Tony can’t blame him.

They’ve never really talked about what happened. Bruce hasn’t volunteered any information, and Tony hasn’t asked. He’s seen the video. He already knows. The only thing either one said about the whole thing was when Bruce asked if Ross was dead and there had been a moment of complete silence before Natasha had finally said yes. Other than that, nothing.

“Hey yourself,” Bruce says, smiling a little and putting his book down, dog-earing the page he left off on. A stray curl of dark hair falls over his forehead, and Tony resists the urge to reach out and touch it. He’d missed this, this one simple thing, waiting for Bruce’s hair to grow back, from the patches to a soft velvet to spikes and finally to the curls again. Not that he’d admit it, but it’s comforting, Bruce looking like Bruce again.

“Champagne?” Tony asks, because it’s the easiest question. Still smiling, Bruce takes the proffered glass, but doesn’t drink. He looks like he’s waiting for something.

“Are we celebrating something?” His voice is would-be casual. Tony swallows.

“Well, I thought, it being Christmas and all…” He takes a sip of the champagne, forcing it down, ignoring the burn in his throat. 

“You just seem…nervous.” For a minute, Tony curses Bruce silently for being so perceptive. Bruce’s smile disappears and he gazes intently at Tony. “You know, we _can_ talk about what happened, if that’s what’s bothering you." 

“It’s not bothering me.”

Bruce practically rolls his eyes. “You’ve always been a horrible liar, Tony.”

“I was just being nice, you know, trying not to push, not overstepping boundaries…”

“Things you don’t normally care about? It’s been six months, Tony. I think I can handle it.”

“You first then.”

Bruce gives him a Look, the kind that means more than just a casual scolding. “Me? I’m not…”

“You haven’t said anything about it either. Not since you were in the hospital. So. You tell me what’s bothering you, I return the favor. Negotiating one-oh-one.”

For a moment, there’s a very heavy, tense silence. Bruce looks away, over his other shoulder, and Tony’s afraid he’s pushed too far, been too flippant, until Bruce opens his mouth.

“How did Ross die, exactly?”

_Fuck._ “Nobody told you?”

Two chocolate eyes return to Tony’s face. “Cap said the factory exploded, but I have the feeling there’s something no one’s telling me.” The unease in his body is palpable, and Tony knows exactly what he’s thinking.

“The Hulk had nothing to do with it,” Tony assures him, and he watches as all the tension drains from Bruce’s shoulders, the fear on his face replaced by confusion. 

“Then what happened?” He’s genuinely curious, innocently curious, but Tony knows his brain, and he knows that Bruce’ll figure it out eventually. That or someone, someone who’s a little more afraid of the Other Guy, will be persuaded to tell him. “Tony?”

“There was a missile.”

Bruce’s eyes widen with comprehension, and his expression is undecipherable. “Tony…”

“We went over this on the plane, didn’t we? Don’t give me that ‘I’m a monster, I’m not worthy’ bullshit, because you _are_ , Bruce. You are worth a fucking Jericho missile. Hell, you’re worth every weapon I ever made. If you can say that what I’m worth being the Hulk, then I can tell you that you’re worth the weapons and the drinking and Afghanistan and-“  

He doesn’t get to finish because all of the sudden Bruce is in his space, cutting him off with a kiss that’s long and warm and full of things that neither of them really wants to be saying out loud.  

“We good?” he asks when they come up for air, and Bruce nods a little, and Tony knows that they’re not done with this discussion, not by a long shot. It’s always going to be there, Bruce feeling like he doesn’t deserve Tony, and Tony feeling like he doesn’t deserve Bruce. But for now, they’ll accept that maybe Tony has a point, maybe they’re equal.

“Your turn.” Bruce’s words are slow and deliberate, like he’s afraid of provoking something.

“Blueberry?” Tony asks, trying very hard to keep his voice even, holding out the bag just like he did all those months ago on the Helicarrier. Bruce just gives him a look, the one Tony is used to, that says _I love you but stop stalling and get to the point_. “Come on, humor me here.”

Bruce’s eyebrows knit together, sensing one of Tony’s ridiculous schemes. He reaches into the bag carefully, and Tony prays this works. Something in the bottom of his stomach twists with nerves, and god, he hasn’t been this nervous in a long, long time. Suddenly, Bruce stops, looking up at him, and Tony knows that at least the first part of his plan is successful. He watches Bruce pull his fingers out, hold his hand up to the light for more careful examination.

“Is this…?”

“Vibranium-platinum alloy. Thought about adding some iron in there, given what it is, but I needed it to be able to shrink and expand when you transform…” He’s rambling, freaking out, eyes locked onto Bruce’s. “This thing with Ross…” No, that’x not what he wants to talk about right now, so he changes tack, back to normal: snarky, flippant. “The thing is, I’m pretty sure I can’t live without you. Kind of like the vibranium. Bad things happen when I don’t have it.” Noting Bruce’s silence, he continues. “It’ll be painless, I promise. Nothing fancy, nothing big, whatever you want, I can afford whatever it is. It just needs to be you and me and I know this isn’t a wife and kids and a picket fence, but it’s the best I can do, okay?”

“Do you really think I’m settling by being with you?” Bruce shakes his head a little incredulously. “I’ve spent years not always getting what I want, and now….now I have you, and you’re the thing I want the most.”

“So is that a _yes_?” 

“It’s a yes.” Bruce smiles at him in that way that makes Tony want to melt and reform and melt again, and so he takes the hand with the ring in it, combining their fingers. “I love you, you know that.”

“I love you too.” Carefully, like it’s some incredibly delicate piece of technology he’s working with, he slides the ring onto Bruce’s third finger. He holds up his glass in the other hand and Bruce mirrors him. “To…”

“To us?”

“To us,” Tony repeats, and they clink glasses and drink. 


End file.
